Minimalist News

Their startup journey is a wild example of how if you build it well and the timing is lucky, they will definitely come.

The flood of AI-generated sexual imagery has spurred concern from state and congressional officials alike.

The $400 million round was led by Dragoneer.

Think TikTok, but every single video you come across is a short episode of a fictional story.

Elon Musk's AI company had installed and operated 35 natural gas turbines without permits, something the EPA now says was illegal.

The startup has partnered with Eli Lilly and enjoys the backing of some of Silicon Valley's most influential VCs.

Nicholas Moore pleaded guilty to stealing victims’ information from the Supreme Court and other federal government agencies, and then posting it on his Instagram @ihackthegovernment.

OpenAI says that users impacted by the ads will have some control over what they see.

In an attempt to alleviate rising electricity prices, the White House wants grid operator PJM to hold an auction for new generating capacity, and it wants tech companies to bid.

AI companies are clustering around healthcare and fast.  In just the past week, OpenAI bought health startup Torch, Anthropic launched Claude for healthcare, and Sam Altman-backed MergeLabs closed a $250 million seed round at an $850 million valuation. The money and products are pouring into health and voice AI, but so are concerns about hallucination risks, inaccurate medical information, and […]

The phishing campaign targeted users on WhatsApp, including an Iranian-British activist, and stole the credentials of a Lebanese cabinet minister and at least one journalist.

Elon Musk's X, formerly Twitter, is down for the second time this week. Nearly 80,000 reports have spiked on Down Detector since around 10 a.m. ET Friday morning.

The country is dropping its import tax from 100% to just 6.1%, with an initial annual cap of 49,000 cars.

These controversial topics include self-harm, abortion, suicide, and domestic and sexual abuse.

Bluesky adds new features to its app amid a boost in installs due to the deepfake drama on X.

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We now have some idea of what's at stake in the longstanding feud between Elon Musk and OpenAI. As first reported by Bloomberg, the latest filing, as part of a lawsuit that accuses the AI giant of abandoning its non-profit status, claims that Musk is owed anywhere between $79 billion and $134 billion in damages from the "wrongful gains" of OpenAI and Microsoft. Musk claimed in the filing that he's entitled to a portion of OpenAI's recent valuation at $500 billion, after contributing $38 million in "seed funding" during the AI company's startup years. Along with providing "roughly 60 percent of

Most Apple products are pretty expensive, but some of the most affordable (and useful) ones are AirTags. The Bluetooth trackers are priced pretty reasonably even when not on sale, but they can be a steal if you can get them on a discount — like right now. A four pack of AirTags is on sale for $65 at Amazon, which is only a few dollars more than the record-low price we saw during Black Friday this year. AirTags can be useful for people who travel frequently, helping you to keep track of essentials like your passport as well as a way

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has sent a cease and desist letter to xAI, days after his office launched an official investigation into the company over reports that Grok was generating nonconsensual If you’ll recall, xAI and Grok have been under fire for taking images of real individuals and putting them in revealing clothing like bikinis upon random users’ requests. Bonta’s office demands that xAI immediately cease and desist from creating “digitized sexually explicit material” when the depicted individual didn’t consent to it or if the individual is a minor. It also demanded that xAI stop “facilitating or aiding and abetting the

AirPods work most smoothly with Apple hardware, but they also connect reliably to Android phones, Windows laptops and other Bluetooth devices. The pairing process depends on the platform in use although the basics remain the same. Once the AirPods are placed in pairing mode, most devices detect them quickly and handle the remaining steps in the background. The guide below explains how to pair AirPods with Apple products, how the process differs on newer iPhones that support H2 features and how to connect them to non-Apple devices. HOW TO PAIR AIRPODS WITH APPLE DEVICES Apple builds AirPods to pair almost instantly with

I came out of my CyberGhost review with a positive opinion, feeling it had earned its spot in my best VPN roundup. However, even an expert review is subjective, and there's a chance CyberGhost will not work for you. If that’s the case, here's how to cancel your subscription. HOW TO STOP YOUR CYBERGHOST SUBSCRIPTION RENEWING Cancelling your CyberGhost subscription won't end it right away, unless you delete your account or get the refund (I'll explain how to do both of those later). Instead, the way to cancel CyberGhost is to stop your subscription from renewing at the end of each billing

Welcome to our latest roundup of what's going on in the indie game space. Several neat-looking games arrived this week, we got release dates for several others that I'm really looking forward to and a brand-new Steam festival was announced.  The Love, Romance, and Heartbreak Debutante Ball is said to be the first Valentine's Day-themed Steam festival. It'll run from February 13 to 20 and feature more than 100 games, including discounts and demos. A showcase will take place on February 13 at 1PM ET on the Sunny Demeanor Games YouTube channel too. Organizers say the festival includes a wide variety of

As frustrating as it is that governments and businesses are running roughshod over our online freedoms, at least we have plenty of good VPNs to choose from to keep us protected online. There are so many fast, intelligently designed, full-featured and affordable services on the market that the biggest problem is picking one. For any use case, you can bet at least two providers will be neck-and-neck for first place. On the other hand, the VPN world is still the Wild West in some ways. It's easy enough to slap a cheap VPN together that the market is flooded with low-quality

X seems to be working again after struggling with an outage that took the service offline and made it slow to load for much of the morning. According to X’s developer platform page, there is an ongoing incident related to streaming endpoints that’s caused increased errors. The incident started at 7:39AM PT, according to the page. That roughly coincides with a spike in reports at Down Detector. The issues seemed to be somewhat intermittent. At some points, X’s website loaded partially and only showed older posts. At other times, the app and website failed to load at all. As of 9:30AM PT,

Google has filed its appeal to the Department of Justice’s antitrust case that ended with a federal judge ruling that the company was maintaining a monopoly with its search business. While the company goes through the appeals process, it’s also asking that implementation of the remedies from the case, which include a requirement that Google share search data with its competitors, also be paused. “As we have long said, the Court’s August 2024 ruling ignored the reality that people use Google because they want to, not because they’re forced to,” Google said in a statement. “The decision failed to account for

If you're looking to up your privacy game on the internet in the new year, you can do so for a little less than usual thanks to ExpressVPN's latest deal. Its two-year plans are up to 78 percent off right now: the Advanced tier is on sale for $101 for two years, plus four additional free months. That works out to $3.59 per month during the promotional period. We’ve consistently liked ExpressVPN because it’s fast, easy to use and widely available across a large global server network. In fact, it's our current pick for best premium VPN. One of the biggest

CyberGhost is the middle child of the Kape Technologies VPN portfolio, but in quality, it's much closer to ExpressVPN than Private Internet Access. I mainly put it on my best VPN list because it's so cheap, but I wouldn't have done that if it didn't earn its place in other ways — affordable crap is still crap, after all. My universal impression of CyberGhost is a VPN that's not perfect but is always genuinely working to make itself better. It makes decisions based on what will help its users, not to set itself apart in a crowded market. This makes it

Claude Cowork, Anthropic's AI assistant for taking care of simple tasks on your computer, is now available for anyone with a $20 per month Pro subscription to try. Anthropic launched Cowork as an exclusive feature for its Max subscribers, who pay a minimum of $100 per month for more uses of Claude's expensive reasoning models and early access to experimental features. Now Claude Cowork is available at a cheaper price, though Anthropic notes "Pro users may hit their usage limits earlier" than Max users do. Like other AI agents, the novelty of Claude Cowork is its ability to work on its

If you follow Anthropic, you're probably familiar with Claude Code. Since the fall of 2024, the company has been training its AI models to use and navigate computers like a human would, and the coding agent has been the most practical expression of that work, giving developers a way to automate rote programming tasks. Starting today, Anthropic is giving regular people a way to take advantage of those capabilities, with the release of a new preview feature called Claude Cowork. The company is billing Cowork as "a simpler way for anyone — not just developers — to work with Claude." After

OpenAI plans to start testing ads inside of ChatGPT "in the coming weeks." In a blog post published Friday, the company said adult users in the US of its free and Go tiers (more on the latter in a moment) would start seeing sponsored products and services appear below their conversations with its chatbot. "Ads will be clearly labeled and separated from the organic answer," OpenAI said, adding any sponsored spots would not influence the answers ChatGPT generates. "Answers are optimized based on what's most helpful to you."  OpenAI says people won't see ads appear when they're talking to ChatGPT about

Although X removed Grok’s ability to create nonconsensual digitally undressed images on the social platform, the standalone Grok app is another story. It reportedly continues to produce “nudified” deepfakes of real people. And now, Ashley St. Clair, a conservative political strategist and mother of one of Elon Musk’s 14 children, has sued xAI for nonconsensual sexualized images of her that Grok allegedly produced. In the court filing, St. Clair accused xAI’s Grok chatbot of creating and disseminating deepfakes of her “as a child stripped down to a string bikini, and as an adult in sexually explicit poses, covered in semen, or

Last week at CES, Lego introduced its new Smart Play system, with a tech-packed Smart Brick that can recognize and interact with sets and minifigures. It was unexpected and delightful to see Lego come up with a way to modernize its bricks without the need for apps, screens or AI.  So I was a little surprised this week when the Lego Education group announced its latest initiative is the Computer Science and AI Learning Solution. After all, generative AI feels like the antithesis of Lego’s creative values. But Andrew Silwinski, Lego Education’s head of product experience, was quick to defend Lego’s

Canada has agreed to drastically reduce its tariffs on imported Chinese EVs from 100 percent to 6.1 percent as part of a between the two countries. In return, China will be reducing tariffs on Canadian canola seeds from 84 percent to about 15 percent. The move is a break from the United States, which maintains a 100 percent tariff on EVs from China, effectively banning them in the country. Mexico currently tariffs the vehicles at 50 percent after last year. Under the agreement, which Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney "preliminary," Canada will allow up to 49,000 Chinese EVs into the country, with that number rising

We already knew something Ocarina of Time-related was coming from Nintendo and Lego in 2026, and now we know exactly what that set will look like. Weighing in at a surprisingly modest 1,003 pieces, the typically word salad-y Lego The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - The Final Battle is the second Lego Zelda set, following the 2,500-piece Great Deku Tree set in 2024. While the latter lets you choose between building either a Breath of the Wild or OoT-themed replica of the wise old guardian of the forest, the upcoming set is aimed squarely at fans of the series’

You know things are messed up when a Big Tech company fights accusations of union-busting by insisting it was only AI layoffs. That's where things stand after a group of fired TikTok moderators in the UK filed a legal claim with an employment tribunal. The Guardian reported on Friday that around 400 TikTok content moderators who were unionizing were laid off before Christmas. The workers were sacked a week before a vote was scheduled to establish a collective bargaining unit. The moderators said they wanted better protection against the personal toll of processing traumatic content at a high speed. They accused

One way to read more in the new year is to incorporate audiobooks as part of your reading habit. Audible is having a sale right now that makes that easier and cheaper to do: you can get three months of access for only $1 per month, or a total of $3. The promotion runs through January 21. An Audible subscription grants one audiobook per month to keep. This can be selected from a massive catalog of new releases and bestsellers. The collection here has just about everything. However, it's easy to plow through a single book in a month. Users also get

Verizon is offering a very small mea culpa after Wednesday's massive outage, which drew more than 1.5 million reports on Downdetector and lasted hours. Initially, the carrier posted on X that it will offer a $20 credit, but customers must redeem it in the myVerizon app. The company then said the credit could be claimed though customer service (via phone or chat), but our editors’ attempts to do so via chat were met with a message to wait for a text with further instructions. Engadget editors began receiving the texts this morning (Jan 16) with a link to redeem. From there,

Apple's next-gen Siri is still far off, but this week the company announced that it'll be using Google's Gemini AI for its new foundation models. In this episode, Devindra and Engadget's Igor Bonifacic discuss why Apple teamed up with Google again, instead of OpenAI or Anthropic. Also, they chat about Meta's Reality Lab layoffs, which is refocusing the company on AI hardware like its smart glasses. SUBSCRIBE! * iTunes * Spotify * Pocket Casts * Stitcher * Google Podcasts TOPICS * Meta announces 1000+ layoffs, closes 3 VR studios as it shifts focus to AI hardware – 2:12 * Gemini can now

The holiday season is fully in the rear view mirror and real life is here to stay. But that doesn't mean the time for gifts is over — especially ones for yourself. You can still take advantage of great January sales on some awesome tech products. Take the Apple Mac mini M4, which is down to $500 from $599. The 17 percent discount gives you 16GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD for only about $20 more than the computer's Black Friday sale. Its beefier models are also on sale: opting for 512GB of SSD will cost you $690, down from

Now that the winter holidays are well and truly past, now's the perfect time to take stock of your tech setup. If you were gifted (or gifted yourself) some new gear in December, make sure that you've got the proper accessories to keep that gear performing at its best. If a new way to power all those batteries would be a benefit, Amazon's currently running a discount on an excellent wireless charging pad. The UGREEN MagFlow Qi2 3-in-1 Charger Station 25W is on sale for $95. That's only a little bit above the lowest price we've ever seen for the

The fate of Warner Bros. Discovery remains the biggest story in Hollywood, with Paramount Skydance refusing to back down from its rival bid to the proposed Netflix acquisition of the company. If the Netflix deal does go through, the company’s co-chief executive, Ted Sarandos, has attempted to ease concerns around what that could mean for theaters. In an interview with The New York Times, Sarandos responded to a question about his company’s commitment to the theatrical business by insisting that he has no interest in bringing a swift end to it. "We will run that business largely like it is today,

Meta is killing the standalone Workrooms app on February 16, 2026. The company presented Workrooms as a virtual reality space where teams can meet and collaborate in an immersive environment when it launched the product. Now Meta says its Horizon platform has evolved enough to support “a wide range of productivity apps and tools,” so it “made the decision to discontinue Workrooms as a standalone app.” The company recently slashed its spending on the metaverse and started the process to lay off more than 1,000 employees from its Reality Labs division. Due to those layoffs and organizational changes, it closed three

The Italian Competition Authority (AGCM) has opened two investigations into Microsoft-owned game studio Activision Blizzard, centered around the mobile games Diablo Immortal and Call of Duty: Mobile. The AGCM alleges the free-to-play games use "misleading and aggressive practices" to encourage in-game purchases. Regulators say the games rely on a "deceptive user interface design" meant to encourage longer and more frequent play sessions while bombarding players with reminders and opportunities to spend real money in-game. Players might be reminded to buy a limited-time item before it's gone or urged not to miss out on rewards, with in-app messages and push notifications that

One way you can reduce the number of cables you have to deal with on the regular is by investing in a few wireless chargers. Those with iPhones should consider Apple's own MagSafe charger not only because of its sleek and effective design, but also because it's on sale right now at Amazon. The Qi2.2-rated MagSafe charger is down to $30 for the one-meter version, or $40 for the two-meter version. If you have an iPhone 16, iPhone 17 or iPhone Air, this cable can charge your device at 25W as long as it's connected to a 30W power adapter on

San Francisco-founded Smart glasses maker Viture has been sued in a US court by rival XREAL over claims it infringed on its patents, XREAL announced in a press release. The complaint, lodged in a federal Texas court, accuses Viture of illegally incorporating XREAL's patented tech into its products including the Luma Pro, Luma Ultra and Beast models.  "The lawsuit is not merely about enforcing a single patent," the company wrote. "It is about stopping a pattern of intellectual property infringement that undermines the integrity of innovation and endangers continued technological development in this industry."  XREAL has already won a preliminary injunction against

You have the best chance to save on streaming services during the holiday shopping season, but throughout the year, the occasional deal pops up that's worth considering. Case in point: this new Disney+ deal. New and eligible returning subscribers can sign up for the Disney+ Hulu bundle (with ads) for $10 for one month of access. That's $3 off the usual price of the bundle for one month, and more than 58 percent off if you consider the cost of each service individually (Disney+ at $12 per month and, separately, Hulu also at $12 per month). We'd be remiss if we

The start of the new year is a great time to get your finances in order, and a good budgeting app can help with that. Instead of laboring over a spreadsheet, you can try one of our favorite budgeting apps for less than usual. Monarch Money is running a sale that gives new users 50 percent off one year of the service, bringing the final cost down to just $50. Just use the code NEWYEAR2026 at checkout to get the discount. Monarch Money makes for a capable and detailed budgeting companion. You can use the service via apps for iOS, Android,

After telling the YouTube channel Hardware Unboxed that it was putting its RTX 5060 Ti 16GB and 5070 Ti into "end-of-life status," ASUS has backtracked on those comments and now says the GPUs will remain on sale.  "Certain media may have received incomplete information from an ASUS PR representative regarding these products," the company said in a dedicated press release." The GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB have not been discontinued or designated as end-of-life (EOL). ASUS has no plans to stop selling these models." ASUS further clarified that supply fluctuations, primarily due to memory supply constraints,

TikTok is bolstering its age-verification measures across Europe. In the coming weeks, the platform will roll out upgraded age-detection tech in the European Economic Area, as well as in the UK and Switzerland. The systems will assess the likely age of a user based on their profile information and activity. When the tech flags an account that may belong to a user aged under 13 (the minimum age to use TikTok), a specialist moderator will assess whether it should be banned. TikTok will send users in Europe a notification to tell them about these measures and offer them a chance to

If you thought we were exaggerating, the hunger for memory and GPUs is making many companies reassess their priorities. YouTube channel Hardware Unboxed discovered ASUS has stopped producing the RTX 5070 Ti and 5060 Ti 16GB due to the ongoing memory crunch. Both GPUs are 16GB models, making them more expensive to manufacture in the current climate. “Demand for GeForce RTX GPUs is strong, and memory supply is constrained. We continue to ship all GeForce SKUs and are working closely with our suppliers to maximize memory availability,” an NVIDIA spokesperson told Engadget. At CES 2026, we saw PCs and computing in the

Gone are the days in which you needed to spend a fortune to get a good smartphone. In 2026, features once exclusive to high-end smartphones – big batteries, multi-camera arrays, high refresh rate OLED displays and more – have made their way down to more affordable models. Yes, you’ll still need to buy a flagship smartphone to get the best camera or fastest processor, but you don't have to make nearly as many compromises as you once did if you have a strict budget to adhere to when you go shopping for your next smartphone. If you have less than

Kathleen Kennedy is stepping down as president of Lucasfilm. Although she will continue as a producer for several Star Wars projects, including upcoming movie The Mandalorian and Grogu, the company will now be helmed by a duo in Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan. It's a big changing of the guard for Star Wars fans, and marks the start of a fresh chapter for the sci-fi universe.  Before taking over at Lucasfilm, Kennedy had seen great success as a producer with a couple little films you may have heard of: E.T. and Jurassic Park. She became Lucasfilm's president in 2012 when the

YouTube channel Hardware Unboxed is reporting that ASUS has stopped producing the RTX 5070 Ti and 5060 Ti 16GB due to the ongoing memory crunch. In its most recent video, the channel states ASUS “explicitly” told it the RTX 5070 Ti is “currently facing a supply shortage.” As a result, the company has “placed the model into end of life status,” and no longer plans to produce it. Hardware Unboxed also spoke to retailers in Australia, who told the channel the 5070 Ti is “no longer available to purchase from partners and distributors,” adding they expect that to be the case

After a tumultuous 2025 that saw it lose around 4,000 employees, NASA finally has an operating budget for 2026, and one that largely preserves its scientific capabilities. On Thursday, the Senate passed an appropriations bill funding NASA, alongside the National Science Foundation and a handful of other federal agencies.  Going into the appropriations process, the president called for a 24 percent year over year reduction to NASA's total operating budget. As part of that plan, the White House wanted to reduce the Science Mission Directorate's funding by nearly half, a move that would have forced NASA to cancel 55 ongoing and

The US and Taiwan have signed an agreement that will see a multi-billion dollar investment into domestic development of semiconductors and related infrastructure. The US Department of Commerce announced that Taiwanese businesses will make an upfront investment of at least $250 billion into their US production capacity, while Taiwan's government will provide credit guarantees of at least another $250 billion in support of the semiconductor industry and supply chain in the US.  In exchange, Taiwan will receive a better deal on tariffs. Reciprocal tariffs will be limited to 15 percent, compared with the previous 20 percent rate. Generic pharmaceuticals and their

After testing the feature in a limited beta, Bluesky is making its "Live Now" badge for streamers available for everyone on the social network to try. Live Now is included as part of Bluesky's v1.114 update, alongside "cashtags," a separate type of hashtag for collecting conversations about publicly-traded companies. Bluesky first started testing its Live Now badge in May 2025 with a limited group of accounts, including the official NBA account. The feature lets Twitch streamers with Bluesky profiles append a Live Now badge to their profile picture that links directly to their livestream. Live Now badges are limited to Twitch

Today, Amazon shared more details about the final chapter of its game New World: Aeternum. The company announced in October that it would wind down support for the MMO, with the Nighthaven season to be its last. New World will be delisted and no longer available for purchase starting today, but the game's servers will not be taken offline until January 31, 2027. People who own the game will be able to continue playing until that date. Nighthaven season will continue through to that end date. Players who had previously purchased New World: Aeternum will be able to re-download and continue

As part of a new agreement, films from Sony Pictures Entertainment will stream on Netflix first, the companies announced via a joint statement. The new deal expands on the exclusive rights Netflix had to Sony films in the US, and means the service will be the first place people will be able to stream upcoming projects like the live-action adaptation of The Legend of Zelda, and a quartet of biopics about The Beatles. Sony's films will stream worldwide on Netflix in what's called "Pay-1," the first window of availability after a movie's theatrical and VOD releases. As part of the deal,

Now would be a good time to update all your Bluetooth audio devices. On Thursday, Wired reported on a security flaw in 17 headphone and speaker models that could allow hackers to access your devices, including their microphones. The vulnerability stems from a faulty implementation of Google's one-tap (Fast Pair) protocol. Security researchers at Belgium's KU Leuven University Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography group, who discovered the security hole, named the flaw WhisperPair. They say a hacker within Bluetooth range would only require the accessory's (easily attainable) device model number and a few seconds. "You're walking down the street with your headphones

The second season of Amazon's excellent Fallout show is currently airing, but the company is already looking to expand its programming around the popular franchise. Prime Video has greenlit a unscripted reality show titled Fallout Shelter. It will be a ten-episode run with Studio Lambert, the team behind reality projects including Squid Game: The Challenge and The Traitors, as its primary producer. Bethesda Game Studios’ head honcho Todd Howard is attached as an executive producer. Amazon's description of Fallout Shelter is: "Across a series of escalating challenges, strategic dilemmas and moral crossroads, contestants must prove their ingenuity, teamwork and resilience as they

The intriguing Africanfuturist heist game, Relooted, is out on February 10. Developed by independent South African studio Nyamakop, the game focuses on a ragtag crew from Johannesburg that liberates real-life African artifacts from a series of fictionalized Western museums. Relooted is best described as a 2.5d side-scrolling action platformer with stealth and puzzle elements. You have to carefully plan each heist with your fellow teammates, knowing where to place each crew member and how you’re going to get in and out in one piece. Once you’ve grabbed the artifact you’re looking for in each mission, an alarm will sound and you have

As masked and armed men in combat armor swarmed throughout the Twin Cities, Gov. Tim Walz took to primetime television to ask Minnesotans to film ICE. The videos, he said, would "create a database of the atrocities against Minnesotans - not just to establish a record for posterity, but to bank evidence for future prosecution." While the feds besieged hospitals and school bus stops and Targets, Walz imagined a future with something akin to the Nuremberg trials. His speech emphasized the legal system and the ballot box, a promise of peaceful regime change and a process of accountability. And it was

During a chaotic multiday event, I found myself working anywhere. And always in a rush. At CES, I did what you're not supposed to do: I brought a pre-production laptop to use as my primary workhorse during a hectic event. The unproven rifle in question is the new Arm-based Asus Zenbook A16. It's a 16-inch laptop that weighs less than a 13-inch MacBook Air and comes with a high-end Snapdragon X2 processor. Going into CES with a Windows on Arm laptop running an unreleased processor sounds like a recipe for disaster. But to my surprise, aside from pre-production hardware glitches, I

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 112, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, I hope your home is warmer than mine right now, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I've been reading about WhatsApp and Gavin Newsom and David Ellison and Andreessen Horowitz, obsessively waiting for every new episode of The Pitt, using the app Monologue to talk to my computer instead of typing to it, joyfully rewatching The Night Manager before diving into the new season, finally getting my Ikea buttons

Twisting the PlayCube angles the image without a tripod. The best all-in-one portable projector is the one that makes all the right compromises. It needs to balance image and sound quality with battery life and responsiveness in a device that's not too expensive and small enough to take anywhere. TCL's fun little PlayCube delivers the right mix to justify paying $800 for a 1080p projector in 2026. I tested the TCL PlayCube running Google TV during a two-month road trip, and then again for a few months at home. It's so small, adaptable, and enjoyable that I've had no problem setting it

The 15-inch MacBook Air offers better speakers than its 13-inch sibling, but is otherwise similar. Apple currently sells MacBooks equipped with its own M-series processors in a wide range of sizes and price points, all of which run the company’s newest operating system, macOS 26. Purchasing a new MacBook can be complicated if you’re trying to figure out what specs you need, but finding a deal on a relatively speedy model is surprisingly easy, especially since Apple increased the starting RAM on several models in late 2024. These days, it’s not uncommon to see various MacBooks discounted by up to $800. Alternatively,

Plus: Fender rebrands its PreSonus music production app, Ricoh unveils a monochrome camera, and Omega has a new Speedmaster.

Struggling with back pain while you sleep or when you wake up in the morning? These mattresses can help with that.

We’re expecting fresh electrics from Rivian, Hyundai, Honda, BMW, and newcomer Slate, among others. Here are the EVs arriving this year that we’re most excited about.

Save on Petlibro essentials, including automatic feeders, water fountains, and accessories to keep cats and dogs fed, hydrated, and comfortable every day.

Leaders at Mira Murati’s startup believe Barret Zoph engaged in an incident of “serious misconduct.” The details are now coming to light.

After an ICE agent shot and killed the Minneapolis mother, conservative media launched an all-out attack on her reputation. Her identity as a queer woman was central to it.

This little power station can keep your stuff topped up, plus you can save some cash on solar panels.

OpenAI says ads will not influence ChatGPT’s responses, and that it won’t sell user data to advertisers.

The plan, which is still in its early stages, is spearheaded by former USDS administrator Mikey Dickerson.

The viral meme isn’t really about China or actual Chinese people. It's a symbol of what Americans believe their own country has lost.

Don’t suffer the buffer. These WIRED-tested home routers will deliver reliable internet across your home, whatever your needs or budget.

Smart plugs can add controls to any outlet, but they aren’t perfect for everything. Here’s our guide to using one and which ones to buy.

The “Joining” seems to connect people via radio waves. Let’s dig into the physics at play.

DJI's new action camera brings a larger sensor, a variable aperture lens, 8K video, interchangeable lenses, and more.

There is no war on protein. But pretending there is goes hand-in-hand with the Trump administration’s appeal to traditional masculinity.

Enjoy 20% off your first order with a Brooks coupon code, plus top discounts and deals on our favorite Brooks running shoes.

From personalized gifts to business essentials, WIRED can help you save with our selection of VistaPrint promo codes.

Enjoy 25% off a membership, 40% off, plus an additional 10% off annual plans, and more deals to save at Vimeo.

Whether you’re looking to upgrade your internet or get the latest phone, we’ve got you covered with our selection of AT&T coupons and deals.

Score big savings on Altra Running shoes with up to 50% off sale styles, 20% off select models, 10% off your first order when you sign up, plus free standard delivery on every purchase.

Save up to 77% on 2-year plans and get 3 free months with our NordVPN discount codes.

Save on streaming with the latest Paramount+ promo codes and deals, including 50% off subscriptions, free trials, and more.

Save 15% or 30% with Adidas promo codes, plus explore January deals for 40% off trendy sneakers.

Users of the VR fitness service are distraught that Supernatural has had its staff cut and won’t receive any more content updates. They’re also pissed at Meta.

Nolah's Evolution is the mattress I personally sleep on as a certified sleep coach, and it's on sale pre-Presidents' Day.

OpenAI is planning to bring over more researchers from Thinking Machines Lab after nabbing two cofounders, a source familiar with the situation says. Plus, the latest efforts to automate jobs with AI.

Together, The Toxic Avenger, and Heat are just a few of the movies you need to watch on Hulu right now.

X has placed more restrictions on Grok’s ability to generate explicit AI images, but tests show that the updates have created a patchwork of limitations that fail to fully address the issue.

Save some cash on this Wear OS smartwatch with a revolutionary battery that can go for five days on a charge (16 days on low-power mode).

Over the past decade, US immigration agents have shot and killed more than two dozen people. Not a single agent appears to have faced criminal charges.

Merge Labs has emerged from stealth with $252 million in funding from OpenAI and others. It aims to use ultrasound to read from and write to the brain.

The Trump administration appears to be planning to leverage the same playbook used in Minnesota to go after other blue states.

Cowork is a user-friendly version of Anthropic’s Claude Code AI-powered tool that’s built for file management and basic computing tasks. Here’s what it's like to use it.

Whether you’re a no-frills backpacker or a bag-checking fashionista, there’s a perfect packing cube out there for you.

These WIRED-tested wearables reduce your reliance on a phone while keeping you connected.

In the market for a mystery treat? There’s more out there than Labubu. We bought a bunch of blind boxes online, and these are our favorites.

The longtime cybersecurity professional says she’s taking the helm of the legacy security organization at “an inflection point” for tech and the world beyond.

VO2 max can predict cardiorespiratory health and longevity, but only if you understand what the number can and can’t tell you.

Join our livestream—and pose a question to WIRED’s panel of experts—on China’s dominance, influence, and how it is rewriting the future.

Flaws in how 17 models of headphones and speakers use Google’s one-tap Fast Pair Bluetooth protocol have left devices open to eavesdroppers and stalkers.

Months after major data leaks, the app where women leave Yelp-style reviews about men is relaunching with a new website. It’s not back on iOS, but the Android app has new AI features.

The AI boom is driving an unprecedented wave of data center construction, but there aren’t enough skilled tradespeople in the US to keep up.

With the looks and speed of a gaming keyboard and the comfort of an ergonomic keyboard, the Falcata is a unique and expensive hybrid for a niche audience.

These odd-looking hearing aids double as solid earbuds, but comfort is a major issue.

As the free online encyclopedia turns 25, it’s facing political opposition, AI scraping, dwindling volunteers, and a public that may no longer believe in its ideals.