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Tag: gear roundup

  • Gear News of the Week: Matter 1.5 Adds Smart Home Camera Support, and Gemini Comes to Android Auto

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    The promise of interoperability for your smart home gadgets that Matter was supposed to bring has been a slow process, but it is starting to deliver, and the addition of cameras in the 1.5 release may be its biggest win yet. The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) says the latest release supports all kinds of cameras, so we’re talking indoor security cameras, outdoor security cameras, video doorbells, baby monitors, and pet cameras.

    This could vastly improve a seriously fractured landscape, enabling you to easily add and access your cameras on whatever platform you choose. It’s also something that can potentially be delivered in a software update, so some of the cameras you already own might get Matter support.

    You may be worrying about limitations, but the supported feature list is impressive, including video and audio streaming, two-way communication, local and remote access, multiple streams, pan-tilt-zoom controls, and both detection and privacy zones. There’s also support for continuous or event-based recording, either locally or to the cloud. What it won’t handle is how that storage is managed, meaning some camera manufacturers will still require you to use their cloud-based subscription models.

    Pleasingly, there are no limitations on resolution, unlike Apple HomeKit Secure Video, or restrictions on AI detection features. Matter is using WebRTC technology, with remote access handled via the STUN and TURN protocols, meaning that manufacturers can choose to implement end-to-end encryption for footage. TCP transport support is designed to allow more efficient and reliable transmission of lots of data, like video cameras produce, which should reduce the load on your Wi-Fi and the impact on camera battery life.

    While this is very exciting news and the potential backwards compatibility is laudable, there’s no telling when you’ll see it in a camera in your home. The big trio: Apple, Amazon, and Google have yet to announce any plans to adopt Matter in their cameras.

    Matter 1.5 isn’t just about cameras, though—it also revamps support for closures, from garage doors to smart window shades, allowing for different motion types and configurations. There’s soil sensor support, too, to measure moisture and temperature and potentially trigger Matter-based water valves and irrigation systems.

    Enhanced energy management features are the final addition. Matter 1.5 enables devices to exchange data on energy pricing, tariffs, and grid operation, enabling you to potentially get a picture of the true cost of your gadgets in energy usage, cost, and carbon impact. EV charging has also been bolstered, with state-of-charge reporting and bi-directional charging that could enable vehicle-to-grid schemes in the future.

    While the Matter 1.5 spec is now available, it will take developers a while to adopt it and get their devices certified by the CSA. Expect some announcements at CES 2026. —Simon Hill

    Google’s Gemini Rolls Out on Android Auto

    Google has been gradually replacing its long-lived Google Assistant with the souped-up Gemini AI chatbot on all its platforms for the past year. After deploying it on its Wear OS smartwatches and, more recently, adding it directly to Google Maps, the company is bringing it to Android Auto. Google says the rollout will take place over the coming months for any Android Auto users who have upgraded from Google Assistant to Gemini on their phones.

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    Julian Chokkattu

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  • Gear News of the Week: Steam Makes a Home Console, and Apple Debuts a $230 Pouch for Your iPhone

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    Valve made a big return to PC hardware this week. The company, most famous for its PC gaming platform, Steam, announced a new home console called Steam Machine alongside a new version of the Steam Controller, and a new virtual reality headset dubbed the Steam Frame.

    The Steam Machine is a revival of Valve’s original Steam Machine, a failed attempt to bring PC gaming to the living room almost exactly 10 years ago. Now, it’s back, built on the success of the Steam Deck handheld. Valve claims the new Steam Machine is six times more powerful than the Steam Deck, and it’s kind of like a compact PC. We don’t have exact measurements yet, but some early hands-on impressions have called it similar in size to the Nintendo GameCube. The Steam Machine uses a custom Zen 4 CPU from AMD, and will reportedly be sold in several memory and storage configurations, which are user-upgradable. The new Steam Controller is meant to be paired with the Steam Machine, and it has two haptic-feedback trackpads and the typical assortment of thumbsticks, buttons, triggers, and bumpers.

    Lastly, there’s the Steam Frame. This long-awaited VR headset is the follow-up to the Valve Index, which is over six years old. Valve calls the Steam Frame a “streaming-first” VR headset, meant to be connected to a PC for lag-free, wireless gaming. To overcome the problem of latency, the Steam Frame will come with a dedicated wireless module to connect to your PC to ensure all the visual data is transferred as smoothly as possible.

    The Steam Frame can also be used as a stand-alone headset, running on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, meaning you’d be playing x86 games on ARM in SteamOS. It’s a tricky endeavor, but based on the success of the Steam Deck in juggling the emulation layers required, I trust Valve to do it in a way Microsoft has always struggled with. As for the headset itself, it only weighs 440 grams, which is significantly lighter than both the Meta Quest 3S and the recently announced Samsung Galaxy XR. It has two pancake lenses with two LCD screens at 2160 x 2160 pixels per eye.

    There’s a lot more to learn about these devices, and none of the new hardware has a firm release date or price yet, as is customary with Valve. All we know is that these devices will begin shipping in early 2026. —Luke Larsen

    A Pouch for Your iPhone

    Courtesy of Apple

    You’ve probably already seen or heard about the iPhone Pocket. Inspired by a “piece of cloth,” it’s a tiny shoulder bag designed to carry around your iPhone, and it stems from a collaboration between Apple and Japanese design brand Issey Miyake. The two companies have enjoyed a long history—Steve Jobs famously wore Issey Miyake’s black turtlenecks on stage during every major launch event.

    The cloth is a singular 3D-knitted construction made in Japan and will be able to fit any iPhone model. This isn’t the first time Apple has suggested you put one of its products in a piece of cloth. In 2004, Apple debuted the iPod Socks, a simple and fun way to keep your iPod screen protected when traveling. They cost $29 at the time (about $50 today).

    Unfortunately, you’ll be paying a heck of a lot more for the iPhone Pocket. The pouch comes in a short-strap version for $150 and a long-strap design for $230. Both are available in a range of colors, but since this is a special-edition release, you’re only able to purchase them at select Apple Store locations and Apple.com in France, China, Italy, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the UK, and the US. (It’s already sold out online.)

    Digital ID Comes to Apple Wallet

    You already have your boarding pass on your iPhone, why not your passport, too? That’s the idea behind Apple’s new Digital ID, a new way to add information from your US passport into Apple Wallet. Acceptance is rolling out in beta at TSA checkpoints in more than 250 airports around the US for domestic travel, though Apple says that will expand in the future.

    You’ll be able to present this form of identification even if you don’t have a Real ID-compliant driver’s license or state ID. (You can already add your driver’s license to Apple Wallet, but this is only available in select states.) It’s important to remember, though, that Apple’s Digital ID does not replace a passport, which is still required for international travel.

    Samsung’s Movingstyle Screens Can Go Wherever You Do

    Gear News of the Week Steam Makes a Home Console and Apple Debuts a 230 Pouch for Your iPhone

    Courtesy of Samsung

    Samsung has announced a new line of “portable” monitors that are meant to travel with you around your house or office. The Movingstyle (LSM7F) and Movingstyle M7 Smart Monitor (M70F) are standard 27- or 32-inch displays, with one big twist: They come with a rollable floor stand with hidden wheels. Rather than have separate large screens in each room, the idea behind these Movingstyle monitors is to have a screen on the go—similar to LG’s StanbyMe range. It’s not hard to imagine scenarios where this could be convenient. Maybe you’re following a recipe in the kitchen or want to finish a show you’re watching on your television in the bedroom. Samsung claims the wheels are quiet and stable on both hardwood floors and carpet.

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    Julian Chokkattu

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  • Gear News of the Week: Fairphone Lands in the US, and WhatsApp Is Finally on the Apple Watch

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    The only smartphone manufacturer with a 10/10 iFixit repairability score is finally bringing its products to the US, but it isn’t starting with its phones. Netherlands-based Fairphone announced this week that it will mark its expansion into the US with the Fairbuds XL, its repairable over-ear headphones. It’ll be available on Amazon later this month.

    Fairphone says it achieved 61 percent revenue growth in the third quarter of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, though this is likely attributed to the launch of The Fairphone (Gen 6)—the company doesn’t release a new phone every year. It sold more than 100,000 units in 2024, including phones and audio products.

    Right-to-repair laws have been cropping up all over the US, and Fairphone smartphones are the easiest to repair. The company provides a screwdriver, sells spare parts for years, and offers long-term software support. Its devices may not be the flashiest or the most powerful, but they are a more sustainable solution, also ensuring fair mining practices and wages for workers in its supply chain.

    Bringing its smartphone over to the US is a little more complicated than headphones, as it requires carrier certifications, but Fairphone tells WIRED it’s in “advanced discussions” with select retailers and carriers.

    WhatsApp Arrives on the Apple Watch

    Courtesy of Meta

    Meta seems to be on a quest to finally bring its apps to other platforms. A few months ago, it launched an Instagram app for the iPad; now we’re getting WhatsApp on the Apple Watch. Rather than just mirroring your notifications and sending basic replies, now you can read full messages on the Apple Watch, record and send voice messages, see who’s calling, send emoji reactions to messages, and see more of the chat history on the screen.

    It syncs with your iPhone, so you don’t need to set it up as a companion device. You can’t take calls on the watch itself or even answer them; you can see who is calling and decline. It also doesn’t seem as though you can add the WhatsApp app as a complication.

    Motorola’s Cheapest Phone Now Has 5G

    It’s a little earlier than usual, but Motorola’s latest budget phones are here: the Moto G 2026 and Moto G Play 2026. They share a similar look and aren’t too different from the design language Motorola has employed on its 2025 Moto G devices. What’s most notable is that the Moto G Play will have 5G support, making it one of the cheapest handsets with 5G at $170.

    Both phones have 6.7-inch 120-Hz LCD screens, big 5,200-mAh batteries, and IP52 water resistance. They’re powered by MediaTek’s Dimensity 6300 processor with 4 GB of RAM, but they differ in storage size, with the Moto G offering 128 GB of internal storage and the Play with 64 GB (both are expandable with a microSD). Cameras are the other place where the two phones diverge, with a 50-MP main sensor on the Moto G and a 32-MP sensor on the Play. Yes, they still have headphone jacks.

    Motorola says the Moto G Play will arrive first on November 13 at Motorola, Best Buy, and Amazon for $170, and the $200 Moto G launches on December 11 at Motorola’s website first, then at Best Buy and Amazon on January 15.

    Canon’s R6 III Goes More Pro

    Gear News of the Week Fairphone Lands in the US and WhatsApp Is Finally on the Apple Watch

    Courtesy of Canon

    Canon has announced its much-anticipated new EOS R6 Mark III full-frame mirrorless camera. The R6 III features a new 32.5-megapixel sensor (the same sensor in the EOS C50 cinema camera), as well as the company’s latest Digic X processor.

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    Julian Chokkattu

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  • Gear News of the Week: Withings Launches Its Pee Scanner, and Samsung Shows Off a Trifold Phone

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    A few weeks ago, bathroom and plumbing company Kohler debuted the Dekoda, a health and wellness sensor that lives on your toilet bowl and records signs of your gut health and hydration. Now, Withings has launched the U-Scan. First shown at CES in 2023, the U-Scan also sits inside the toilet bowl. A thermal sensor detects when a fresh, er, sample is being deposited. The U-Scan takes a small sample and analyzes it on-site with miniature biochemical sensors inside an interchangeable cartridge.

    There are two separate U-Scans. U-Scan Nutrio analyzes your diet, checking for biomarkers like bio-acidity, hydration status, and ketone levels, which shows that you’ve started burning body fat instead of sugar. U-Scan Calci also checks for calcium, which is a sign that you might have kidney stones. Results are then transmitted via Wi-Fi to the Withings app.

    The cartridges are replaceable, and the sensor comes with a docking station to clean and recharge the sensor. Purchasing the U-Scan comes with a complimentary subscription to Withings+, the company’s upgraded app, which also includes a free consultation with a nutritionist.

    The U-Scan packages start at $380, which comes with one U-Scan, either Nutrio or Calci, one cartridge, and two to four scans weekly (each cartridge lasts about 2.5 months). For more intensive monitoring, the Intensive package includes two cartridges for five to seven weekly measurements. Replacement cartridges are $100 for one cartridge or $180 for two, and Withings sends you the cartridge automatically depending on which package you select. The U-Scan is now available at Withings.com. We’ll be testing it soon. —Adrienne So

    Samsung Brings Its Browser to Windows, and Teases a Trifold Phone

    Samsung has long offered its own browser on its smartphones—Samsung Internet—but now the app is finally available on another platform: Windows. Considering Samsung makes Windows laptops and Android phones, this move allows folks who use the company’s browser to share their browsing history and bookmarks between phone and laptop, and if you have saved passwords with Samsung Pass, you can use it to autofill passwords on websites.

    The company is taking this opportunity to bring some Galaxy AI features over as well, including Browsing Assist, which lets you instantly summarize webpages or translate them to another language. Samsung says its browser also blocks third-party web trackers, and there’s a Privacy Dashboard that lets you see what has been blocked.

    Samsung Internet for PC is only available as a beta right now, but anyone in the US or South Korea on Windows 11 or Windows 10 (version 1809 and above) can download it now.

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    Julian Chokkattu

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  • Gear News of the Week: There’s Yet Another New AI Browser, and Fujifilm Debuts the X-T30 III

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    An increasingly popular solution is the inclusion of a solar panel to keep that battery topped up, enabling you to install and potentially never touch the camera again. Both Wyze and TP-Link just revealed interesting solar-powered cameras this week. Let’s talk about Wyze first.

    The Wyze Solar Cam Pan ($80) is a 2K outdoor security camera that can pan 360 degrees and tilt 70 degrees. It is IP65-rated, easy to mount, and sports a small solar panel that Wyze reckons can keep the camera running on just one hour of sunlight a day (we shall see as I test through the gray depths of a Scottish winter). The Solar Cam Pan also features AI-powered person tracking, two-way audio, color night vision, a spotlight, and a siren, though you need a subscription, starting from $3 per month, to unlock smart features and get cloud video storage.

    Wyze also announced a new, impressively affordable Battery Video Doorbell ($66). We started testing Wyze cameras again recently after it beefed up its security policies, but the repeated security breaches, exposing thousands of camera feeds to other customers, may still give you pause.

    Meanwhile, TP-Link is the first manufacturer to combine solar power with floodlight capability in its new Tapo C615F Kit. The similar-looking but larger Tapo C615F is another 2K camera, but it pans 360 degrees, tilts 130 degrees, and, most importantly, has an adjustable 800-lumen floodlight.

    TP-Link says its solar panel only needs 45 minutes of sun a day to keep the camera ticking, and it comes with a handy 13-foot cable, so you can install the solar panel in the best spot to catch those rays. The Tapo C615F ($100) is available now, and you can use the promo code 10TAPOFLDCAM to get $10 off if you’re quick. —Simon Hill

    Fujifilm Updates Its X-T30 Line

    Courtesy of Fujifilm

    Fujifilm has released the X-T30 III, an update to the company’s entry-level, SLR-shaped mirrorless X-T30 line. The third iteration of the X-T30 pairs Fujifilm’s familiar 26-MP X-Trans APS-C sensor with the latest Fujifilm processor, the X-Processor 5. The latter means that the X-T30 III is now roughly the same as the X-M5 and X-T50 in terms of internal features. All of Fujifilm’s film simulations are available, as are the subject-recognition AF modes. Video specs also see a bump up to 6.2K 30 fps open gate, and 4K 60 fps with a 1.18X crop.

    The body is nearly identical to the previous model; the size, weight, and button/dial layout are the same as on the X-T30 II. The one change is that the control dial is now a film simulation dial, with three options for custom film recipes. The X-T30 III goes on sale in November at $999 for the body, or $1,150 for the body and a new 13- to 33-mm F3.5-6.3 zoom lens (20 mm- to 50 mm-equivalent). —Scott Gilbertson

    Intel’s AI Experience Stores

    In time for the peak shopping season, Intel is launching a variety of “AI Experience Stores” at a few key locations around the world. We don’t know exactly what they’ll be like, but Intel says these pop-ups will include an “AI-powered shopping experience” of some kind and are based on the initial launch of the trial run store in London last year.

    If it keeps that same design ethos intact, these stores will be fairly immersive experiences. There will be lots of AI-driven demos on devices from the wider Windows laptop ecosystem, presumably to help drive interest and curiosity in what PCs can do. Interestingly, it comes on the back of a significant marketing push by Microsoft with its new Windows 11 AI experiences, trying to convince buyers to upgrade and explain some of the new AI features.

    Here are the dates and locations below for when Intel’s stores will be open. —Luke Larsen

    • New York City: 1251 6th Avenue (10/29 to 11/30)
    • London: 95 Oxford Street (10/30 to 11/30)
    • Munich: Viktualienmarkt 6 (10/30 to 12/9)
    • Paris: 14 Boulevard Poissonniere (11/4 to 11/30)
    • Seoul: OPUS 407, 1318-1 Seocho-dong (10/31 to 11/30)

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    Julian Chokkattu

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  • Gear News of the Week: Honor Teases a Bizarre Robot Phone, and Kohler Debuts a Toilet Sensor

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    Prices start at $325 for the carry-on version, $375 for the checked size, $395 for a larger checked version, or $995 for the entire family set. I am planning on using the carry-on version this weekend, and it easily paired with my iPhone. In every other respect, it’s a normal bag—it has your standard polycarbonate shell with a (I have to say) garish embossed July logo on the side; smooth-rolling wheels, bumpers, and leather finishes. There’s also an inset ejectable USB-C battery.

    July’s CaseSafe makes it so you don’t have to fuss with AirTags, but that still doesn’t stop me from saying you can upgrade your current carry-on similarly with an AirTag and a power bank, and it won’t cost you anywhere near $300. —Adrienne So

    Fujifilm’s New Instax Has Two Cameras

    Courtesy of Fujifilm

    Fujifilm announced the Instax Mini LiPlay+ this week, an update to its 2019 Mini LiPlay camera. The LiPlay+ is, like its predecessor, a hybrid camera and Instax printer. In fact, little about the main camera seems to have changed. It still has a 28-mm equivalent f/2 lens that records roughly 5-MP photos to the sensor.

    Fujifilm has added a second camera on the back, though, for taking selfies. It’s a 23-mm equivalent f/2.2 lens, but what is kind of fun is the ability to create what Fujifilm calls “layered photos,” shooting both lenses at the same time, superimposing, for example, a circle of a selfie on top of a background. Alas, there does not seem to be a way to make this an actual double-exposure image, which feels like a missed opportunity (especially since Fujifilm’s other cameras, like the X100 series, have long had a double-exposure mode).

    The other new feature here expands on the original LiPlay’s ability to record audio and attach it to a print via a QR code. Now it’s not just audio but an animated video with sound and music. The Fujifilm Instax Mini LiPlay+ will be available later this month for $235. —Scott Gilbertson

    GrapheneOS Will Come to Another Phone

    The security-focused, Android alternative operating system GrapheneOS has announced it will soon be available on phones other than the Google Pixel. The developers said in a post on Reddit that a “major OEM” will soon be added to GrapheneOS’s list of supported phones. No brands were mentioned, but many users are guessing it will be OnePlus, given the company’s past support for CyanogenMod, another Android alternative. The GrapheneOS developers do say that whichever phone it turns out to be, it will be similarly priced.

    In a follow-up post, the developers clarified that the phone maker is “definitely serious about working with us. That’s how we have security partner access.” They also explicitly say it is not Fairphone, which sells a separate version running another Android alternative, e/OS. —Scott Gilbertson

    Roku Leans Into AI for Its TV Interface

    Gear News of the Week Honor Teases a Bizarre Robot Phone and Kohler Debuts a Toilet Sensor

    Courtesy of Roku

    Roku has announced some nifty software upgrades coming soon to its popular streaming devices and TVs, and they lean heavily on artificial intelligence. Roku Voice now features AI searches, allowing you to ask things like “What’s Barbie about?” or “How scary is The Shining?” and get a helpful answer. Roku is also adding easier access to movie trailers, better searching for shows to watch, and a simpler interface to help you understand what is streaming where.

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    Julian Chokkattu

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  • Gear News of the Week: Intel’s New Chips Arrive, and Apple May Debut iPads and MacBooks This Month

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    Intel’s future has never seemed so uncertain. But most of the company’s roller-coaster ride of a year has been a lead-up to its next-gen CPU launch, announced this week. The chips will be known as Intel Core Ultra Series 3, codenamed Panther Lake, and they’re being manufactured in its new Arizona-based fabrication plant.

    Intel claims the first configurations will ship before the end of the year and then more broadly starting in January 2026. We don’t have a complete lineup yet, but Panther Lake will include up to 16-core CPUs with a “more than 50 percent faster CPU” performance over the previous generation. Intel claims that the new integrated GPU with have up to 12 GPU cores that are also 50 percent faster than the prior generation, boosted by a new architecture.

    Intel is fighting back against the stiff competition. Qualcomm dramatically entered the Windows laptop race in 2024 with its Arm-based, highly-efficient Snapdragon X chips, doubling the battery life of current Intel-powered laptops in some cases. While Intel was able to respond to the battery-life competition with its Core Ultra Series 2 V-series chips in late 2024, performance took a hit on these laptops, and the efficiency only applied to flagship, thin, and light laptops. Budget-level and high-performance laptops used a different architecture and therefore didn’t get that same bump in efficiency.

    That made shopping for a laptop in 2025 even more head-scratching than normal. These next chips will attempt to fix this problem, with the company promising “Lunar Lake–level power efficiency” and “Arrow Lake–class performance.” Intel really needs to achieve that promise, because with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite having just been previewed and the Apple M5 on the way, the stakes keep rising. —Luke Larsen

    Apple’s Next Hardware Launch Is Coming Soon

    Tim Cook on stage during the Apple Keynote on September 9, 2025.Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

    If you’re thinking, didn’t Apple just have an event? Yes, the company debuted new iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirPods just last month. But rumors are heating up that the company will announce more products this month, focused on iPads and MacBooks. That’s not unusual, as the company has held October events for the past few years, usually for the tablet and Mac lineups. It’s unclear whether this will be an actual event or a silent launch via press release. The company has done both in the past.

    So what can you expect? The marquee announcement will revolve around the anticipated M5 chipset, which may debut inside a new MacBook Pro and the iPad Pro. The flagship tablet likely won’t look or feel too different from the prior M4 version. MacBooks are a little more up in the air on launch timing; it could be at this event or early in 2026. If they are announced, it’ll be a new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro with an M5, M5 Pro, and M5 Max chip. Apple has also reportedly been gearing up for a budget MacBook launch powered by an iPhone processor, but this may arrive early in 2026 instead.

    Other hardware that may debut at this October event includes a new Vision Pro powered by an M4 or M5 chip with a comfier head strap, though it’s otherwise the same as the original headset. There may be a new Apple TV with a faster chipset, the new version of Siri (though this won’t come until 2026), and Wi-Fi 7 support. And we may finally see a second-gen AirTag, with a longer range.

    The PlayStation 6 May Arrive in a ‘Few Years’

    Sony published a video to its PlayStation YouTube Channel this week featuring Mark Cerny, the lead architect of the PS5, and Jack Huynh, AMD’s senior vice president. It’s largely technical, digging into graphics technology that the two companies are jointly developing.

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  • Gear News of the Week: Adobe Premiere Lands on iPhone, and Nothing Lets You Design Your Own Widgets

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    Adobe has had a busy year designing and redesigning a number of its most popular apps for mobile, and Premiere for iPhone is the latest—a mobile-first video editing workflow that adapts most of the tools from the desktop version of Premiere to a mobile user interface. You can trim, layer, edit, and even auto-generate captions, alongside all the basic editing features you’d expect, like color and exposure adjustments.

    The automatic resizing feature is particularly nice, adapting videos to both horizontal and landscape platforms, making sure your subject is centered for both cuts. As with anything Adobe releases these days, there are plenty of AI-powered features, including the ability to generate backgrounds from a prompt and create sound effects from your voice.

    Premiere for iPhone is free, though if you want to use the AI features, you’ll have to buy credits within the app. According to Adobe, the Android version is still under development. —Scott Gilbertson

    Nothing Reveals an AI ‘Operating System’

    No, Nothing isn’t switching from Android to a custom AI-powered OS. However, the phone brand announced a new platform called Essential, which will lay the groundwork for a future in which users generate their own apps and user interface. We’ve heard these ideas before, often called generative user interfaces, and it’s still early days for the technology.

    Nothing’s plan starts with two apps: Essential Apps and Playground. The former lets you create “apps” with natural language, though these are really designed in the form of widgets. Just describe what you need—capture all the receipts in my camera roll and export a PDF every Friday—and this will be generated as a widget you can interact with on the home screen. The Nothing Phone (3) supports up to six of these Essential apps, but older Nothing devices are limited to two.

    Playground is a place where you can publish not just your Essential Apps but also other Nothing oddities, like Glyph Toys from the Phone (3), camera presets, and EQ profiles. You can download what the community has made and even “remix” them into your own. Eventually, these features will turn into what Nothing is calling Essential OS, which it expects to debut in 2028. (Remember the Essential Phone from 2017? Nothing bought the company’s assets in 2021, and it seems like it was for the name.)

    Nothing debuted some of these AI features with the “Essential” branding earlier this year. Essential Space is a new app that debuted on the Phone (3a), triggered by a dedicated button; tap it to capture your screen and have AI pull insights and summarize the contents. Now, there’s Essential Memory, which the company says “brings everything together by learning your habits, and surfacing forgotten details when you need them most.” It’s coming soon, so we’ll have to wait and see to learn more.

    Whoop Now Lets You Order Blood Work

    Courtesy of Whoop

    Hot on the heels of Ultrahuman and Oura announcing that you will be able to schedule and take blood labs with their services, Whoop debuted Whoop Advanced Labs. Not only can you add your preexisting blood work to the Whoop app, but you can also book blood testing through the app (like Oura, Whoop has partnered with Quest Diagnostics). Whoop’s offering is a bit more expensive, at $199 per test, $349 for two tests per year, or $599 for four tests per year, as compared to Oura’s $99 per test. Both purport to combine blood work results with long-term continuous monitoring with their respective trackers.

    Labs are routine medical tests that let doctors screen things such as high cholesterol, high blood glucose, and diabetes, or hormone or ferritin tests to check if your thyroid is working or you’re eating enough iron. They can be expensive, inconvenient to schedule and take, and fairly arcane to interpret, so it makes sense that startups are starting to offer them as part of their subscription services.

    Still, it’s a sad statement on the current accessibility of health care that routine medical services are now being funneled into revenue streams for private companies. As much as I like the Oura Ring and the Whoop band, they’re not doctors; they still can’t actually treat you for a heart attack or colon cancer. —Adrienne So

    Arlo Refreshes Its Security Cameras

    Gear News of the Week Adobe Premiere Lands on iPhone and Nothing Lets You Design Your Own Widgets

    Courtesy of Arlo

    Arlo’s new Essential 3 range rounds off a busy week for security cameras, with Google showing off new Nest cameras and Amazon releasing a fresh batch of Ring and Blink cameras. Arlo’s Essential 3 lineup includes indoor and outdoor pan/tilt cameras (a first for the company), alongside a new generation of regular outdoor and indoor cameras.

    The Essential Pan Tilt ($60) and Essential Pan Tilt Indoor ($50) offer 2K footage, 360-degree pan, 180-degree tilt, and automatic subject tracking, and there are HD versions for a bit less. The 3rd-gen Essential Outdoor Battery ($70), Essential XL Outdoor Battery ($80), Essential Security Camera Plug-in ($50), and Essential Indoor Camera Plug-in ($40) all offer 2K footage, and again, there are slightly cheaper HD versions of each.

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  • Gear News of the Week: Nothing’s Latest Earbuds, Amazon’s Hardware Event, and a New Free VPN

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    Nothing has a new pair of earbuds for you: the Ear 3. These AirPods-style buds cost $179 and are available now, following the Nothing Phone (3) and Headphone (1) the company released this summer. While they share the stem design aesthetic of Apple’s popular earbuds, the blend of aluminum and plastic sure makes them look unique.

    The key feature in the noise-canceling earbuds is called Super Mic. Except it’s not in the earbuds at all—there are two microphones in the charging case. It supposedly cuts background noise, and you can talk into it by pressing the Talk button on the case, like a walkie-talkie. A double-press keeps the mic on continuously. (Keep an eye out for free Nothing earbuds case product placement in influencer videos soon.)

    The earbuds still feature a three-mic array, but utilizing the Super Mic in the case should enhance your voice. Naturally, you can also use it to record voice memos, which are saved in the company’s Essential Space app on its phones.

    These flagship Ear 3 earbuds also feature improved noise canceling, enhanced audio quality, a stronger signal connection, and longer battery life—5.5 hours with noise canceling enabled and 10 hours with it turned off. We’ll be giving them a spin soon, so stay tuned for our review.

    Amazon’s Fall Hardware Event Is Coming

    Courtesy of Amazon

    It’s that time of year again. Not Halloween season, but fall gadget season. Apple kicked things off earlier this month, Meta unveiled new smart glasses this week, and now Amazon will close the month with its own hardware event. The company sent out press invites this week for an event on September 30 in New York City.

    If the design on the invitation is anything to go by, we can expect new Echo speakers, potentially a new color Kindle, and a Fire TV Smart TV. There are a few blue rings that are the hallmarks of an Echo, which may mean we’ll finally get a timeline for when Amazon’s souped-up Alexa+ will exit early access and officially roll out.

    The other intriguing addition is the photo of a Kindle with a color screen. Amazon just announced new Colorsoft Kindles earlier in July, and it’s a little too soon to see yet another Colorsoft. It’s most likely a color version of the Kindle Scribe, just in time to compete with ReMarkable’s new Paper Pro Move. We’ll be on the ground on September 30 to relay the details. —Nena Farrell

    ExpressVPN Debuts a Free VPN

    ExpressVPN recently changed its subscription tiers, and now it has something else cooking: EventVPN. It’s a free VPN service available on Apple devices, including iOS and macOS. What makes it different? There isn’t a paid plan. EventVPN runs exclusively off ads.

    Ads and online privacy are basically oil and water, but EventVPN claims it has an ad model that will allow it to stay afloat without compromising user privacy. It’s also operating entirely on RAM-based servers, which means that, even if it wanted to log your data, it would disappear the moment it’s flushed from memory.

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  • Gear News of the Week: Google’s Next-Gen Nest Cams Are Coming, and Sony Debuts a New Xperia Phone

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    Google has accidentally leaked its new Nest security cameras and video doorbell line. Setup options appeared in the Google Home app for wired versions of the Nest Cam Indoor (3rd gen), Nest Cam Outdoor (2nd gen), and Nest Doorbell (3rd gen), as reported by Android Authority. The options now appear to have been removed, but an eagle-eyed Redditor also found the new products locked up at Home Depot, ready to go on sale.

    Google has already confirmed that it plans to unveil new information about the infusion of its Gemini voice assistant into Google Home on October 1, replacing Google Assistant. That’s likely when we’ll see the new hardware, too. These overdue updates are rumored to include a resolution bump to 2K, a new zoom and crop feature, fresh colors, and a switch to Gemini for Home. There’s also talk of a new subscription option as Nest Aware turns into Google Home Premium, and a new Google Home Premium Advanced plan. Details haven’t been confirmed, so take all of this with a pinch of salt.

    As for the design of the new lineup, they look almost identical to the existing range, aside from the colors, which include an eye-catching red. Perhaps in preparation for the new releases, the Nest team recently updated the Home app to provide preview images from the last event before the live view loads, swiping between timeline and events, and better notifications with a static thumbnail expandable to a large animated preview. There was also a raft of performance improvements and some much-needed polish. —Simon Hill

    Sony’s Xperia 10 VII Won’t Launch in the US

    Courtesy of Sony

    Sony stopped selling its flagship Xperia phones in the US last year, and that seems to be continuing with the latest midrange Xperia 10 VII, announced on Friday. It’ll launch in Asia, Europe, and the UK, and it debuts a fresh design language with a horizontal camera bar, much like Google’s Pixel phones (and even the iPhone Air).

    It has a 6.1-inch screen, which may sound nice and compact, but it’s slightly bigger than the 6.1-inch iPhone 16. That’s probably because the bezels at the top and bottom of the screen are a little chunky for a modern phone. Still, you get a 120-Hz refresh rate, and some folks will be excited to see the 3.5-mm headphone jack and microSD card slot. It’s powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 chip with a 5,000-mAh battery in tow, and no wireless charging.

    As for the cameras, Sony has a 50-megapixel main camera paired with a 13-MP ultrawide, and you can use the dedicated shutter button on the side to snap pics. It’ll cost £399 or €449 in the UK and Europe and goes on sale September 19, the same day as the latest iPhone 17 lineup.

    Qualcomm Debuts Quick Charge 5+

    This week, Qualcomm announced the next evolution of its fast-charging technology, known as Quick Charge 5+. Qualcomm calls it its “fastest and most versatile charging solution,” which can recharge phones from 0 to 50 percent in five minutes. That was true of the original version of Quick Charge 5, though, which is now more than 5 years old. The advances in Quick Charge 5+ revolve around “advanced thermal control” and “intelligent power delivery” to the standard. It’s less about increasing charging speed and more about maintaining that speed sustainably.

    For example, Quick Charge 5+ doesn’t just flow all that juice to the device uninhibited; instead, it “dynamically” regulates that power using a “reduced-voltage approach.” This means it can lower the voltage on the fly to prevent overheating while charging, without impacting performance or battery health.

    Qualcomm says its fast-charging technology powers over 1 billion devices, but we’ll have to see if Quick Charge 5+ picks up more mainstream adoption in phones and accessories in the US. Qualcomm’s annual Snapdragon Summit is coming up on September 23, and the company says devices announced at the conference will support Quick Charge 5+. —Luke Larsen

    Ultraloq Enables NFC Unlock for Android Phones

    Gear News of the Week Googles NextGen Nest Cams Are Coming and Sony Debuts a New Xperia Phone

    Courtesy of Ultraloq

    Smart-lock brand Ultraloq is adept at adding support for the latest smart-home standards into its devices, from Matter to HomeKit. Now, Android users can share a similar experience to Apple Home Key users with an update to its Bolt NFC smart lock ($200), allowing it to work with NFC-enabled Android devices for a tap-to-unlock feature, much like how you tap to pay. It’s a feature often touted for iPhones, and usually, you can’t switch between ecosystems when a device is compatible with both. The Bolt NFC lock will allow for both Apple and Android devices to wirelessly unlock this smart lock with a tap.

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  • Gear News of the Week: Veo 3 Comes to Google Photos, and Garmin Adds Satellite Comms to a Watch

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    Google via Julian Chokkattu

    A few months ago, Google debuted a feature in Google Photos that lets you convert your existing photos into short videos using generative AI. These videos introduce slight synthetic movements to your stills, so a person may appear to slightly shift around in the frame, or a picture of your sleeping pup could gain a leg twitch. This week, the company upgraded this feature with its Veo 3 video generation model, which boosts the quality of the results.

    To play around with it, head to any photo in Google Photos, tap the three-dot button at the top right, and tap Create. Choose the Photo to Video option, and then pick between Subtle Movement or I’m Feeling Lucky, which will be a little more creative. I tried it on a photo of my wife and it had her raise her arms to make a heart sign. (The fingers looked surprisingly realistic, though my wife exclaimed that her hands looked massive.) Google says you can even combine its Photo to Video tool with other Create tools, like Remix, which can change the style of the photo to a sketch or 3D animation.

    The Veo 3-powered version of the feature is now available in the US.

    Garmin Finally Launches Watches With Satellite Communication

    Gear News of the Week Veo 3 Comes to Google Photos and Garmin Adds Satellite Comms to a Watch

    Courtesy of Garmin

    As Taylor Swift and Tom Jones have both observed, “It’s been a long time coming.” Garmin, manufacturer of our favorite outdoor fitness trackers and hands down the best satellite messenger, finally added satellite and cellular communication to a smartwatch. The new Fenix 8 Pro has Garmin’s inReach technology inside, which means you can send messages over satellite or cellular networks to Garmin’s Response team. Not only can you trigger emergency alerts, but you can also send texts, make calls, and check the weather forecasts. It also has a MicroLED screen that can deliver up to 5,000 nits of brightness, making it not only visible in your tent at night but everyone else’s. (That’s a joke.)

    There are two versions of the watch. The AMOLED screen comes in 47- and 51-mm sizes and gets up to 27 days of battery life per charge, while the MicroLED version comes only in a 51-mm size and gets up to 10 days of battery life in smartwatch mode. The Fenix 8 is already our favorite outdoor sports watch, and the ability to easily use satellite communication when you need it only makes it even more useful. It almost makes you overlook the sting of its enormous price—the MicroLED version goes for a cool $2,000, which seems less expensive when you consider that you previously may have had several devices to cover your bases before (a smartwatch for work, a fitness tracker for working out, and a satellite communicator for off-grid shenanigans). The AMOLED version is only $1,100. Both models will be available for purchase on September 8. —Adrienne So

    Polar Made a Whoop Band

    Gear News of the Week Veo 3 Comes to Google Photos and Garmin Adds Satellite Comms to a Watch

    Courtesy of Polar

    Fitness tracker company Polar announced the Polar Loop this week, its first screenless tracker that, well … there’s no way to get around it: The Polar Loop looks remarkably similar to the Whoop band, a black, bracelet-style screenless tracker. However, unlike Whoop (which requires a $199 yearly subscription to use), every feature is available on the Polar Loop from day one, with no added fees. Polar’s bracelet is designed for 24/7 wear. Its suite of fitness metrics is more limited—it doesn’t track blood pressure and can’t detect Afib—but it does have auto-activity tracking, sleep tracking, and a few training tools, like Training Load and Fitness Test. Everything is accessible through the Polar Flow app.

    I’ve tested many Polar fitness trackers, and Polar’s heart rate monitor is our top pick. While I appreciate the accuracy and beauty of the hardware, I’ve found its app and metrics very difficult to use and parse. As the popularity of the Whoop band and the entire smart ring product category has shown, there is a real hunger for what Polar CEO Sander Werring calls “discreet, screenless experiences.” You can always layer a watch in front of it! —Adrienne So

    JBL Is Down to Party

    JBL debuted a trio of new Bluetooth speakers, including two large boombox-style party speakers and a cool portable go-anywhere model. The new Boombox 4 and PartyBox 700 may have hilariously on-the-nose names, but they will also offer appropriate amounts of power. The former kicks out 210 watts of power and two additional woofers for more bass than the previous model, with up to 30 hours of play time and a life-proof IP68 rating. The PartyBox 700 is the largest JBL party speaker that runs on battery, with a hilariously loud 800 watts of power and 15 hours of playback; this thing is meant to replace a PA at your next block party. At $550 and $1,099, respectively, these are meant for folks who need seriously loud models.

    Gear News of the Week Veo 3 Comes to Google Photos and Garmin Adds Satellite Comms to a Watch

    Courtesy of JBL

    The most exciting speaker for most people will be the new JBL Grip, a $100 speaker that has a cool integrated rope hook and a nightlight for in-tent (or under-blanket) reading. Its battery can provide up to 14 hours of playback, and the speaker features JBL’s now-standard Auracast—also available on the above speakers—to allow you to pair multiple speakers together. —Parker Hall

    ExpressVPN Mixes Things Up

    Gear News of the Week Veo 3 Comes to Google Photos and Garmin Adds Satellite Comms to a Watch

    Courtesy of ExpressVPN

    ExpressVPN is overhauling its subsription offerings and phasing out the single, streamlined plan the company has offered for 16 years. In its place are three new plans priced at different tiers, each with different features. It’s a clear hit back at rivals like Surfshark, Nord, and Proton, each of which has built out robust security suites that go far beyond a VPN.

    Even with the new options, ExpressVPN’s core service remains intact. The new Basic tier ($13 per month) replaces the subscription ExpressVPN previously offered, with the only difference being a bump from eight simultaneous connections to 10. The next tier is Advanced at $14 per month, and above that is Pro at $20 per month. You can score a discount on any plan by buying an entire year at once.

    The new Advanced and Pro tiers include a lot of extras, so it’s worth looking over the list published by ExpressVPN. Some highlights include Keys, ExpressVPN’s password manager, identity theft monitoring on the Advanced plan, and a dedicated IP and data removal services on the Pro plan.

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  • Gear News of the Week: Apple’s iPhone Event Gets a Date, and Plaud Upgrades Its AI Note-Taker

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    Apple has officially set a date for its iPhone September event, which is due to take place on September 9. This year’s launch will be held at the Steve Jobs Theater on Apple’s campus in Cupertino, California. The company is expected to unveil the iPhone 17 range, which for the first time will include the iPhone 17 Air—though that name could change—Apple’s thinnest and lightest iPhone to date. We’re also expecting the Apple Watch Series 11, Apple Watch Ultra 3, and the AirPods Pro 3.

    The invitations included the tagline “Awe dropping,” along with the Apple logo in shades of blue and green. These are rumored to be color choices for the iPhone 17 Pro devices. The logo also moves like a heat map on Apple’s website, which could allude to potential thermal improvements in the upcoming devices, or the rumored switch back to aluminum instead of titanium on the iPhone Pro models (which would also improve thermals, anyway).

    WIRED will be on the ground live-blogging the latest from Apple’s presentation. In the meantime, you can brush up on all the features coming to your iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Watch, as Apple usually drops the next operating system version right after the event.

    The Oura Ring.

    Photograph: Simon Hill

    Oura Is Building a Manufacturing Facility in Texas

    Oura, the leading global manufacturer of smart rings, announced this week that it has plans to build a manufacturing facility in Fort Worth, Texas. Oura’s largest enterprise customer is the Department of Defense, and US-based manufacturing operations will support its needs. Oura has sent tens of thousands of rings to optimize performance across all branches of the US armed services. It notes that its rings are being used in four key research areas: stress management and resilience, fitness optimization, fatigue risk management, and early illness detection.

    This announcement comes at a time when the smart ring industry is going through lots of shake-ups. The US International Trade Commission recently ruled in favor of Oura in a patent infringement case against competitors Ultrahuman and Ringconn, which have had to pull their respective rings from the US market. This is particularly bad news for Ultrahuman, which has a facility in Plano, Texas, where the company was planning to manufacture rings in the US to get around tariffs. Ultrahuman is also countersuing. (It’s all very messy.)

    We’ll keep an eye on the situation as it evolves, but for now, US customers might only be able to buy an Oura ring. It’s a good thing it’s our favorite smart ring. —Adrienne So

    Gear News of the Week Apples iPhone Event Gets a Date and Plaud Upgrades Its AI NoteTaker

    Courtesy of Plaud

    Plaud Has a New Note Pin

    Plaud makes a credit card-sized AI note-taking device that listens to the world around you and then transcribes conversations, summarizing them into meeting notes with actionable insights. It began with the Plaud Note, then the Plaud NotePin, a wearable device, and this week the company unveiled the Plaud Note Pro ($179).

    It shares a similar card-shaped design with the original, but now it features two extra microphones to pick up audio at a wider range. There’s also now a 0.95-inch AMOLED screen that displays battery life, the current recording status, and the mode. Unlike the original, you don’t need to flip a switch to swap from recording calls to in-person meetings—the Pro will do it for you. Just long-press the button once to start recording. You can highlight key information during a meeting with a short press, and you can type in the phone app simultaneously to add your thoughts; they’ll be contextualized to the recording instantly. Plaud also lets you snap a photo with your phone to add additional context.

    Plaud’s Note Pro can identify and label individual speakers in its transcriptions, and it can transcribe 112 languages. You can also ask Plaud (via the app) a specific question from your notes, so there’s no need to hunt for key details. It employs large language models from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. The Note Pro is up for preorder now and ships in October. You get 300 transcription minutes per month, but you’ll have to cough up $100 per year to quadruple that and get access to new features faster. (There’s a plan that offers unlimited transcription minutes for $240 annually.)

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  • Amazon’s Audiobook Narrators Can Now Make Their Own AI Voice Clones

    Amazon’s Audiobook Narrators Can Now Make Their Own AI Voice Clones

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    Synthetic voices have been proliferating for years, and the generative AI boom of the new ’20s has sped that process right along. AI voices are everywhere—in podcasts, in political campaigns, and in chatbots where they maybe-not-so-subtly replicate celebrity voices. Soon, they’ll be all up in your audiobooks too.

    Audible, the Amazon-owned audiobook company, announced a trial program for generating AI voice clones to read works in its audiobook marketplace. The announcement came via a post in ACX—Audiobook Creation Exchange—Audible’s service that lets authors and publishers turn written books into audiobooks.

    “We’re taking measured steps to test new technologies to help expand our catalog,” says the post, “and this week we are inviting a small group of narrators to participate in a US-only beta enabling them to create and monetize replicas of their own voices using AI-generated speech technology.”

    Audible says both the narrators and authors will have control over which projects their AI voices are used for and that final narrations will be reviewed as part of ACX’s production process to check for mispronunciations or other errors.

    Still, this might seem a tad incongruous with Audible’s current approach to narrated audiobooks, given that even after this announcement, ACX’s submission requirements still say that audiobook narrations, “must be narrated by a human.” But Amazon has already been bullish on AI, and implemented a similar AI audio program for its Kindle direct publishing operation last year.

    Right now the Audible program is limited, with a select group of narrators participating. But it’s easy to see where this could go from here, and soon Audible could be opened up to let any author capable of generating an AI voice that can read their own book. Other companies are playing in this space as well; the startup Rebind is enlisting authors to allow their voices to be cloned so an AI version of them can “guide” readers through their texts. Fans of audiobooks are on the fence about all of it.

    Personally, I cannot wait until these dulcet yet uncanny voices fall into the hands of the dinosaur eroticists.

    Here’s some other consumer tech news from this week.

    Papers, Please

    Google is letting users digitize even more of their personal information. Up next: passports.

    Google added digital drivers’ licenses to its Wallet platform last year, enabling Android users to store identification details on their phones. Soon (Google doesn’t say exactly when) users will be able to do the same with their US passports.

    There are some caveats, of course. A Google Wallet version of your passport will be accepted only at specific TSA checkpoints where digital IDs are allowed. (Here’s a map.) Also, Google makes sure to recommend that you keep your passport on hand anyway. Digital IDs aren’t typically accepted anywhere outside of airports, so if you get into a pinch while abroad you’ll want to have your physical documentation. But for a lucky subset of travelers, this will solve the problem of needing to take yet another thing out of your bag when going through airport security.

    Keepin’ Tabs

    Hey speaking of Google, the company also announced some good news for all of us filthy browser tab hoarders. Tab grouping is a feature in Google Chrome that lets you squirrel away all your browser tabs under group folders for easier sorting. (I’ll read them later, I swear!) Google says its grouping feature will soon be made to sync across platforms. That means you can seamlessly continue your desktop browsing journey on your mobile device, where you will definitely not just continue ignoring them.

    Tab grouping will also soon be available on Chrome in iOS, and should be able to sync across desktops as well. How soon is all this coming? Well, again Google wasn’t quite clear about that. Regardless, better start collecting all those browser tabs now. Never know when you might need them again.

    Menlo-Upon-Tyne

    Meta—the Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp company that also does AI—has announced that its AI services are set to colonize a new cultural realm: the Brits. Meta announced it will be training its AI models off data from the users of its platforms in the UK.

    Specifically, the data will be collected from anyone who uses Facebook or Instagram in the UK, and then used to train Meta’s AI accordingly. In its announcement, Meta says it hopes this move will help its AI tools more accurately reflect British culture and speech.

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  • The New Sonos App Is So Bad, the Company Might Bring Back the Old One

    The New Sonos App Is So Bad, the Company Might Bring Back the Old One

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    The newest version of Sonos’ mobile app is still very bad—so bad, the company is considering ditching the newly redesigned version of the app and bringing back the older version. This news, reported by The Verge, comes along with reports that Sonos is also laying off 100 employees. Indeed, not a great time for the swanky speaker company.

    Things first went awry for Sonos when it released the new version of its app in May. It was met with almost universal disdain. Users found the new app format made it difficult to connect to a network, queue up songs, or even change the volume. One of the key complaints was that many of the accessibility features in the legacy app were either poorly implemented in the redesign or removed from the platform entirely. Some users say the app is nigh unusable for blind Sonos owners.

    Sonos has at least acknowledged its blunder since the bungled rollout, but the company has yet to fix many of the issues at hand. CEO Patrick Spence has said the fiasco may cost the company upwards of $30 million and has led to it delaying two new hardware products.

    Hence the potential frantic backtracking to a version of the Sonos app that actually worked. It isn’t clear whether Sonos will actually let users switch to the previous app version or when such a capability will be available. For now, Sonos users will just have to keep slogging through it.

    Here’s some other news from the world of consumer tech this week.

    BMW Uno

    Great news for anybody who loves the card game Uno and also owns a BMW: You can now combine both of those interests without worrying about losing cards beneath the floor mats.

    Uno Car Party! will let riders play Uno together in the vehicle, using a combination of their own phones and the display screens on the car’s dashboard. The new feature—coming to the BMW X3 and select Mini models on August 21—is a joint effort of the game company Mattel and the cloud-based game service AirConsole. This is the same partnership that brought the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? quiz game to BMW cabins a couple of years ago.

    It’s sure to be good fun, but just know that you can’t play card games while driving down the road, lucky for all the other humans and robots on the road. Save it for ferry rides.

    Browser Hell

    Descend into Hell via Google Chrome, because Diablo is playable on a web browser now. This capability comes via a fan-made, open-source project called Diabloweb that is available on GitHub. The game includes the 1997 Diablo, along with its expansion, Hellfire. It takes a teensy bit of setup (you need to download the game and run it locally), but before long you’ll be able to hack and slash some demons on just about any browser you choose.

    Sure, it’s not quite as impressive as running Doom on a pregnancy test or strain of gut fauna, but being able to smoothly play one of the most renowned video games right there in your browser is still pretty nifty.

    Starlunk

    Starlink, the satellite internet division of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, plans to start offering direct-to-cell access, which will beam its connectivity to cell phone users in a partnership with mobile provider T-Mobile. Other cell providers like Verizon and AT&T don’t seem to like that development very much.

    This week, Starlink’s competitors filed petitions to deny Starlink’s efforts to implement its cell service with the US Federal Communications Commission, which regulates how satellite internet is distributed in the US (and beyond, once the satellites are up there).

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  • Tesla’s Cheaper Long-Range Model 3 Is Back

    Tesla’s Cheaper Long-Range Model 3 Is Back

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    Plus: The Ford Capri returns as an EV, Samsung workers are on indefinite labor strike, and the market for anti-obesity drugs is messier than ever.

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  • Say Hello to Creator-Built AI Chatbots on Instagram

    Say Hello to Creator-Built AI Chatbots on Instagram

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    In case you thought Instagram influencers couldn’t get anymore online, they’re soon going to have the ability to make AI versions of themselves that you can interact with at all times.

    The announcement came from the mouth of a chain-clad Mark Zuckerberg, who shared his thoughts about AI and who gets to control the technology in an interview with YouTuber Kane Sutter, aka Kallaway. (He also said Meta has holographic AR glasses coming soon, but let’s save that for another time.)

    The AI chatbots will be made in collaboration with a handful of Instagram creators that Meta has partnered with. Zuckerberg says the feature is in the test phase and will roll out to various Instagram users slowly. It is not yet clear exactly what form these AI chatbots will take, but it seems the creators that Meta is partnering with will build their characters in the company’s AI studio, so they will likely operate a lot like the AI Characters that Meta debuted last year.

    If this all goes according to plan, you’ll soon be able to go into your Instagram DMs and chat with AI simulacra of your favorite influencers. File this one away in the “What could possibly go wrong?” folder.

    Here’s some other consumer tech news from around the web.

    2 H2 2 Furious

    Extreme E, the off-road racing series that uses only electric vehicles for its high-speed shenanigans, is moving into another gear of power systems for its vehicles.

    The new series, called Extreme H, will be a race for hydrogen-powered cars only. Purpose-built for this series is the new Pioneer 25, a speedy racing car powered entirely by hydrogen. The Pioneer 25 can get up to 200 kph (124 mph), which is very zippy for an off-roading vehicle.

    The Pioneer is meant to usher in a new era of eco-friendlier motorsports, though there is some debate about how clean hydrogen power actually is.

    Hyundai Funday

    On the more affordable vehicle front, the Korean car company Hyundai has a new EV. The Hyundai Inster is a compact urban hatchback that can seat four people. It has a boxy look to it—similar to a Scion or a Mini Cooper—and boasts a projected range of up to 355 kilometers (220 miles). The Inster’s battery has a charge time of 4.5 hours for a full charge. It definitely isn’t a race car, as it tops out at 86 mph.

    The official price hasn’t been revealed yet, but according to AutoNews, the sticker should wind up being somewhere around $26,000. Or the foreign-currency equivalent of that, anyway; the Inster is not yet being released in the US. The car will land first in Korea, followed by Europe, the Middle East, and other countries in Asia.

    FCC U

    The US Federal Communications Commission is trying to make it easier for phone users to switch networks. A proposal put forth this week by FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel calls for mobile phone providers to unlock customers’ phones if they want to use the device on a different network. Lots of providers lock customers into their networks by pairing their devices with a subscription plan that keeps them on the network run by a particular carrier. If this guidance makes its way into reality, companies would be forced to unlock devices 60 days after being activated, which means you’d be free to switch carriers and take your phone with you.

    There’s no official ruling being put in place yet. This proposal is coming in the form of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which the FCC drafts to seek public comment on potential rulings in the future. The proposal itself isn’t public yet, but it might be after the FCC votes to move it along during its July 18 open meeting session.

    One Vape to Juul Them All

    Juul once held near-total dominance over the nicotine vaping industry. But when US regulators cracked down on the purveyors of the addictive nicotine dispensers (particularly ones that were the most popular among underage customers), Juul’s reign came to an end. Of course, that doesn’t mean demand for vaping is anywhere close to gone. Plenty of illegal operations have moved to fill that void, and it’s relatively easy to find vape pods for sale in the US that come from overseas distributors.

    This latest episode of WIRED’s Gadget Lab podcast features Leon Neyfakh and former WIRED associate editor Arielle Pardes, the hosts of the new podcast Backfired: The Vaping Wars. The show is all about what happened to the nicotine vaping industry, whether vapes are really better than cigarettes (yes, but you probably still shouldn’t puff on them), and what will happen in the future of vaping.

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  • Things Keep Getting Worse for the Humane Ai Pin

    Things Keep Getting Worse for the Humane Ai Pin

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    Each speaker combo is about 42 inches tall.

    Photograph: Wilson Audio

    This new iteration of the WATT/Puppy is the first redesign of the speakers since 2011. They ain’t cheap though, and cost more than $53,000 for a pair (£41,998 if you speak British). You can customize individual parts of the speakers, like the grille colors and hardware bits, making it possible to put together a variety of distinctive-looking sets. You can also install spikes on the feet for near-total vibrational isolation—which should keep the sound from getting flabby when Walter Becker hits the lowest notes on your 180-gram audiophile vinyl Aja remaster.

    Elon’s Payday

    Elon Musk really likes money. Or at least that’s what you might assume seeing as he is currently in a fight to secure $56 billion as a salary for staying on as CEO of the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla.

    On June 13, Tesla shareholders will vote to approve the gargantuan paycheck for the world’s richest man. It’s been a tense row, with the chair of Tesla’s board calling for shareholders to approve the money lest Musk leave for, well, greener endeavors. And—surprise, surprise—Musk has been shit-talking Tesla shareholders who say they will vote against the pricey package.

    In other Elon adventures, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk diverted a shipment of Nvidia AI chips away from Tesla and had them sent to facilities of his other pet project, the social site formerly known as Twitter. (Now stupidly known as X.)

    An Overview of AI Overviews

    As Google is wont to do these days, the company’s latest AI ambitions have yet again riled up people online. AI Overviews are Google’s newish written summaries that appear at the top of a results page on some Google searches. The goal is to present a short, easily readable answer to a searcher’s question in an instant. In reality, those answers are sometimes completely wrong or misleading. Not only that, but giving searchers an immediate answer without them having to click on any links creates an all but existential crisis for websites that depend on people going to their page. Like, you know, every journalistic publication out there.

    This week on the Gadget Lab podcast, WIRED writers Kate Knibbs and Reece Rogers join the show to talk about how AI overviews are changing how we find information online, how Google has managed the feature’s rollout, and what happens when the overviews start stealing what you’ve written.

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    Boone Ashworth

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  • Android Now Lets You Edit Text Messages

    Android Now Lets You Edit Text Messages

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    Hey u up? I miss u babbe.

    That’s the kind of immediately regrettable text you’ll now be able to salvage on Android Messages. This week, Google announced a bunch of new features coming to its Android mobile platform, and perhaps most useful among them is the ability to edit messages after they’ve been sent.

    The update is for Google’s default Messages app, and works pretty much the same way the edit option functions in other messaging apps like WhatsApp. Once a text is sent, tap and hold on the message, then when the menu pops up, tap Edit. There, you can fix your frightening textual faux pas and help to cultivate a world of clearer communication.

    Courtesy of Google

    There are a couple of caveats. You can only edit messages within 15 minutes after sending them (just like in WhatsApp) and once you do a small bit of fine print will appear by the timestamp saying that the message was edited. Of course, the recipient will still see all your embarrassing typos if they are prompt enough to view the message before you can change it.

    The other Android updates Google announced this week include better smart home controls, the ability to switch between devices mid-call, and more WearOS controls for devices like Google’s Pixel Watch.

    Here’s some other news from around the consumer tech world.

    Car Thing Refunds

    Spotify says it will refund any of its users who bought a Car Thing, the company’s first and only hardware device that was released in 2022. Spotify discontinued the Car Thing just a few months after its launch, and it announced this month that it would be disabling all the devices by the end of 2024. The company initially said it wouldn’t be offering replacements or refunds for the dashboard-mounted music streaming box, but after significant customer backlash, Spotify relented. Or at least has softened its stance, even though it hasn’t exactly guaranteed refunds for the $90 device. (Instead, the company says customers can contact customer service and request a refund.)

    It’s not a great look for Spotify, which is now facing a class action lawsuit from Car Thing users who are frustrated the company decided to stop supporting the device entirely.

    Amazon’s Drones Take Off

    Amazon’s delivery drone program had all but crashed and burned in recent years, as it has struggled with slow or botched deliveries and an inability to convince the Federal Aviation Administration to let it expand. But the Everything Company’s drones may be able to find some new lift at last, as the company says it has successfully gotten FAA approval to fly some drones out of line of sight of the operator, which could significantly expand their operations.

    Amazon’s quest for delivery dominance has caused it to make some questionable ethical decisions, like making it more complicated for users to opt out of Amazon Prime or making its employees work so hard they have to pee in bottles.

    Even with this green light for takeoff some problems still exist that may keep the drones grounded, like the fact that there might not even be much customer interest in the program, or the fact that the drones struggle to fly on especially hot days.

    Richard Mille Scores an Ace

    The new new RM 27-05, a collaboration between Richard Mille and tennis star Rafa Nadal.

    Photograph: Richard Mille

    Let’s be honest, collaborations between watch brands and celebrities are usually pointless. But no such criticism can be aimed at what Richard Mille and Rafael Nadal have been doing for the last 14 years. The original RM 027, the pair’s collaboration that launched in 2010, started things off as they were destined to continue, showcasing increasingly audacious missions to go ever more lightweight, rugged, and just plain technically crazy. The RM 027 weighed less than 20 grams, then the RM 27-01 just 18.83 grams. In 2015 came a new case architecture. The 2017 RM 27-03 boasted 10,000 gs of shock resistance. Then, in 2020, the RM 27-04 punched this shock resistance up to 12,000 gs.

    The new RM 27-05 continues the lightweight battle—remove the straps and it comes in at 11.5 grams. This is thanks in part to the monoblock case made of Carbon TPT B.4, a material previously used in Formula 1 race cars. Compared to normal Carbon TPT, B.4 is denser, the fibers are stiffer, and the resin is around 30 percent tougher. What does this mean? Thinner pieces can be machined, so you get weight reduction without losing rigidity. The manual movement inside has been shaved down to be lighter, too, and is 0.6 millimeters thinner.

    Finally, to make sure all was well, the RM 27-05 underwent a series of tests no watch should be subjected to: vertical and horizontal shocks, and 300 g accelerations. Yes, it’s limited to 80 pieces, but when you consider each one costs $1,150,000, Richard Mille should recoup the considerable development costs.

    WIRED’s Jeremy White contributed this writeup of the RM 27-05.

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  • LinkedIn Has Games Now

    LinkedIn Has Games Now

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    LinkedIn, the social network that is ostensibly about work, now has a space just for playing games. The company launched LinkedIn Games this week after testing the gaming waters earlier this year. The new puzzle and logic games are free, straightforward, and only a little bit of a ripoff of The New York Times’ very popular game offerings.

    In a blog post attributed to LinkedIn VP Daniel Roth, the company said the goal of the games is to give users a short mental break while on the platform. (And, of course, the unspoken part: Games keep people on the platform longer and drive engagement.)

    Currently, there are three games available. Pinpoint feels like playing a single row of the The New York Times’ Connections games. Crossclimb is a Wordle-esque matching game where you answer clues to solve a larger riddle. Queens is a mashup of chess and Sudoku that annoyed me just enough to ensure that I felt spitefully compelled to finish it no matter what. (I filed this story to my editor late because of it. It’s pretty good.)

    Like The New York Times’ games, LinkedIn’s games can be played just once per day. Users can share their scores directly on the platform, in case anyone needs to make posting on LinkedIn even more competitive.

    Here’s some other consumer tech news from this week.

    Face Plant

    Surprise surprise, Razer’s not-so-futuristic light-up face mask is bad, actually. Razer is known for its use of colorful RGB lightning in just about all of its products, even though the flashy display scheme proved somewhat underwhelming on its Zephyr face mask. Even worse, the company claimed the mask had the equivalent filtration qualities of an N95 mask, which can filter out harmful particles as well as viruses.

    Turns out, that capability was never formally tested. Now, the Federal Trade Commission has ordered the company to pay for making these claims about the mask’s capabilities, forcing the company to refund the money of every customer who bought one—to the tune of over a million dollars. ($1,071,254.33 to be exact.)

    The company first sold its $99 device in October 2021, deep in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Zephyr capitalized on a fear of infection that was still very much top of mind for many people. Razer claimed the mask could filter out particles, including Covid-carrying particles, just as well as any standard N95 mask. But, as the FTC says, the company never submitted it for certification with NIOSH, the US safety agency that certifies all N95 standards. Now the company has to pay for that error.

    Peloton Problems

    Peloton, the connected-exercise-equipment company that became a huge hit with wealthy people confined in their homes during the pandemic, has had some trouble in recent years. Peloton first rolled into financial issues in 2021, when demand for its products waned and its stock price plummeted. Now the company has hit an even slipperier slope.

    In the space of a couple of days, Peloton announced the departure of its CEO, Barry McCarthy, and that it would be laying off 15 percent of its workforce—nearly 400 employees. It’s not a great look for a company that once seemed set to revolutionize the home-exercise-equipment industry.

    Hybrid Theory

    Used to be that when someone said “hybrid” you’d think of the Toyota Prius, for better or worse. Hybrids were always the pudgy, weird little vehicle that maybe didn’t fit the typical idea of a “cool car.” At least that’s how the category was defined before a new wave of hybrid vehicles started to swell into the market. Now, hybrids are becoming cool; there’s even a souped-up Lamborghini plug-in hybrid. These gas-electric machines are also more popular than ever in the US, thanks to some government mandates that urge automakers to move toward a zero-emission future.

    This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED staff writer Aarian Marshall joins the show to talk about how hybrids are taking over the American vehicle market.

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  • Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Shades Get a Fresh Blast of AI

    Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Shades Get a Fresh Blast of AI

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    Meta’s newest smart glasses, developed in partnership with Ray-Ban, have been newly fleshed out with more AI features. This week, Meta started rolling out an over-the-air update to its second generation of smart sunglasses that gives the wearables some new capabilities.

    The biggest update is the Meta AI with Vision feature, which incorporates Meta’s ChatGPT-enabled AI assistant into the spectacles. Owners of the smart glasses will be able to activate an AI voice assistant, fiddle with (nearly) real-time translation, and identify stuff in the wearer’s vision. It all sounds very futuristic for sunglasses, though users have reported that, like all these newfangled AI systems, some features work better than others.

    Other new features in the update include video calling in WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger apps and the ability to share the wearer’s view, shot from the glasses’ two front-facing cameras. The glasses also come in two new frame styles: the lower bridge Headliners and the cat-eye Skylers.

    Walking around with a pair of cameras strapped to your face might still feel a little dystopian, but the fact that they look like regular old Ray-Bans makes the Meta shades blend into daily life more than the smart glasses of old like Google Glass. So yes, it certainly gets points for style, much like Mark Zuckerberg and his new chain obsession these days. But it’s also worth taking a moment to remember that these sick shades are coproduced by a company that has a history of letting its users’ data fall into the wrong hands. You’ll look dope in them, sure, but you’ll also be giving Meta first dibs on all the new parts of your life you’re capturing.

    Here’s some other consumer technology news from this week.

    Bag Your Recycling

    The new Freitag Mono[PA6] bag.

    Photograph: Freitag

    Freitag, the Swiss company known for making upcycled bags and backpacks, has a slick new black sack. The Mono[PA6] Backpack can hold up to 24 liters of stuff and comes with a smaller detachable musette that can be worn like a sling or purse. The company says every bit of the bag is made from a single nylon material (polyamide 6). Everything from the flaps, straps, and zippers are cobbled together from that single base compound. That means you can send it back to Freitag, where the company can fully break it down and recycle the material to make another bag. The new piece retails for $380.

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