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Apple has been expected to widen its smart home offering for a long time now, and if a new report is accurate, we could be getting a trio of new devices fairly soon. According to Bloomberg, Apple is working on an indoor camera and a smart display to arrive in 2026, as well as a tabletop robot, with the latter expected to launch in 2027.An Apple-made smart display in particular has featured heavily in the rumor mill for a number of years, but it appears to be closer than ever. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that Apple's new home hub will have a 7-inch square LCD display, a built-in FaceTime camera and an OS that dynamically adjusts depending on who's using it. It will also ship with an improved version of Siri that will behave more like ChatGPT or other chatbots in how it uses the web to answer your questions. The product, along with the more advanced Siri chatbot, had been slated for release earlier this year, but Apple reportedly scrapped those plans in favor of a spring 2026 launch.Bloomberg claims there will be two versions of the home hub, one code-named J940 which takes the form of a display mounted on a HomePod mini-like speaker, and the other (J491) designed to be hung on a wall. With both you'll be able to control smart appliances, play music and presumably interact with Apple's various apps on other devices. Apple is said to be targeting a price of around $350, although the Bloomberg report does not specify which version of the device that price refers to.The tabletop robot scheduled to launch in 2027 will effectively be the smart display Apple could be releasing next year mounted into a motorized arm that can move the device to different positions, which sounds like the company's take on Amazon's (slightly creepy) swivelling Echo Show 10, first launched in 2021. This product will have a larger 9-inch display, but is said to be delayed after Apple encountered engineering challenges with the motor.Bloomberg reports that all three of these devices will be built in Vietnam, which sources said represented a "major change" in how Apple launches a new product category, as it has traditionally relied on China at the outset. In 2020 it emerged that Apple was looking to diversify its production by moving some of its iPad and MacBook manufacturing to Vietnam, and the US' trade war with China has only intensified during Trump's second administration. Vietnam has not escaped tariffs of its own, but they're less severe than imports from China.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/apples-long-rumored-smart-display-will-reportedly-cost-350-165801748.html?src=rss

The new M5 MacBook Pro has arrived - and brought something of a strategy change for Apple's chip release strategy this year. This time around, Apple has led with the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro, which retains the same $1,599 starting price as its M4 predecessor. It debuts alongside new 11- and 13-inch iPad Pros and a refreshed Apple Vision Pro that have the same M5 chipset, but - unlike last year - there's no M5 Pro and M5 Max devices to be found. In the past, Apple has favored launching its entire MacBook Pro lineup at once, as it did in 2024 with the M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max models. However, it may have decided to release the M5 model now so it could get a jump start on sales, since the M5 Pro and M5 Max versions are reportedly still several months away. Apple may have also opted for a low-key release since the M5 MacBook Pro is largely unchanged from the previous model. With that, the emphasis is squarely on the M5 chip and its extra performance. Reportedly due to cost reasons, Apple decided to use the same 3-nanometer fabrication process for the M5 as it did for the M4. The new chip has 10 GPU cores and 10 CPU cores, along with a 16-core Neural Engine. Apple claims the M5 has the "world's fastest CPU core" with up to 20 percent faster multithreaded performance compared with the M4 chip. As for the GPU, the company says that offers "up to 1.6x faster graphics performance in pro apps and enables up to 1.6x higher frame rates in games compared to the M4 model." That should make the M5 MacBook Pro a better option than the M4 model for things like gaming and video editing. To that end, compared with the M4 MacBook Pro, Apple says the latest model delivers up to 1.8x faster "AI video-enhancing performance" in Topaz Video, up to 1.7x faster 3D rendering in Blender and up to 1.2x faster build performance during code compiling in Xcode. The company is promising 3.5x faster AI performance than with the M4 model, and up to 6x faster performance than M1. It also claims SSD performance is up to twice as fast as the previous generation. The M5 MacBook Pro comes with the same 14.2-inch, 3,024 x 1,964 Liquid Retina XDR display that can hit 1,000 nits in SDR mode and up to 1,600 nits peak brightness for HDR content. It has adaptive refresh rates at up to 120Hz and offers a wide P3 color gamut with up to 1 billion colors, ideal for video editors and Lightroom users. Other key features include an SDXC card slot, HDMI port and 3.5mm headphone jack. There are three USB-C ports as before, but they're still the Thunderbolt 4 type with speeds up to 40 Gbps, and not the 80 Gbps Thunderbolt 5 ports found on M4 Pro and Max models. It also comes with a six-speaker system with support for Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio as before, along with Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3 and a 12MP Center Stage 1080p webcam. As you might imagine, it comes with macOS Tahoe ready to go. Per the comparison page on Apple's site, except for the different CPU, the M5 MacBook Pro otherwise has identical specs to its M4 predecessor, right down to the same dimensions, weight and 70-watt power adapter. The 14-inch M5 MacBook Pro is now available for pre-order starting at $1,599 with 16GB memory and 512GB storage. It maxes out at 32GB of RAM and 4TB of storage. Shipping will start October 22. Update, 12:52PM ET: Confirmed via Apple's spec page that there are no real differences between the M4 and M5 MacBook Pro aside from the new CPU. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/apples-first-m5-laptop-is-the-14-inch-macbook-pro-131314446.html?src=rss

Fujifilm just announced the Instax mini LiPlay+ instant camera, which is a refresh of the original mini LiPlay from 2019. It's been six long years, so the company has added some nifty features here.First of all, there's a second camera on the rear that's intended for selfies. It features a wide-angle lens and joins the pre-existing front-facing camera. There's a new functionality that lets users combine the content from both cameras to create unique layered images. That's pretty nifty.

The Ring Battery Doorbell is on sale via Amazon for just $50. This is half off and matches the Prime Day price, only now the deal is available for everyone. The sale applies to both colorways. This is the company's entry-level video doorbell but it's still got some nifty features. First of all, it's powered via a rechargeable battery, so users don't have to do any wiring to get started. It charges via an included USB-C cable. The Ring Video Doorbell is a relatively new design, having been first released in the middle of last year. It offers improved video when compared to the previous generation, in addition to a 23 percent increase in battery life. It can also handle head-to-toe video, which is handy when trying to suss out who is at the door. The doorbell sends out real-time alerts and there's a live view available via the smartphone app. This app also allows for conversations. It can hold onto recordings via the cloud, but only for those subscribed to Ring Home. A subscription includes access to 180 days of video history, but does cost $5 to $20 per month. Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/this-battery-powered-ring-doorbell-is-on-sale-for-50-right-now-150926669.html?src=rss

It took two years for Threads to get messaging, but you thankfully don't have to wait that long to be able to start group DMs. Meta has started rolling out group chats for the app, which lets you add up to 50 of your followers to a single conversation. Just start a new message and add anybody who follows you on Threads. The company says that you'll also be able to share a link that your followers can click to join a group conversation "soon," so you don't have to add them one by one. Like in messaging apps, you'll be able to customize the group chat's name to better reflect its topic.In addition to launching group DMs, Meta is also releasing the messaging feature in the European Union over the coming days. If you're in the EU, you'll get access not just to individual DMs, but also to group DMs, messaging controls, privacy settings, the hidden folder where spam goes to and support for media files when the feature becomes available in your country.Emily Dalton Smith, Meta's Head of Product for Threads, told us in a test group chat that it's "on track to become Meta's next major app" with 400 million monthly active users." Messaging has been the top requested feature since Threads launched, but it took some time to release it because it "wasn't a priority in the early days." Since making DMs available on Threads in July, Meta has added support for photos, videos and GIFs, a messaging requests folder to reduce unwanted messages, the hidden spam folder and a privacy setting that completely switches off message requests from people you don't follow.Threads / MetaThis article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/threads-now-supports-group-dm-150002493.html?src=rss

Waymo is bringing its autonomous taxis to the UK in 2026, marking the company's first major expansion outside of the US. Waymo has selected the mobility company, Moove, as its fleet operations partner, and is currently working with local and national authorities in the UK to gain the necessary permissions to launch a robotaxi service in London first next year.Right now, you won't find any fully driverless cars in London or anywhere in the UK, but that's set to change next year when the Automated Vehicles Act 2024 begins to take effect. This legislation is intended to regulate the eventual arrival of self-driving vehicles in the UK, but before that can happen, the government will help to facilitate robotaxi pilots from Spring 2026.Given its complex road network and narrow winding streets built long before cars were a concern, London will be a challenging city for Waymo's robotaxis to navigate, but the company said in a statement that its technology significantly reduces the risk of injury-causing collisions with other vehicles and pedestrians compared to human-driven cars. The imminent arrival of Waymo in the UK was also welcomed by the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), with self-driving taxis seen as an important first step in ushering in autonomous travel on a larger scale.Waymo already has close links to the UK, with its first international engineering hubs located in London and Oxford. It also has a partnership with UK-based Jaguar Land Rover, which sees it equip all-electric Jaguar I-Pace taxis with its Waymo Driver self-driving tech in the US.However, Waymo won't be without competition when its service arrives in London next year. Uber and Wayve are planning for their own pilot to launch around the same time, after the latter's CEO and co-founder, Alex Kendall, called the arrival of the Automated Vehicles Act "a defining moment for UK autonomy."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/waymo-plans-to-launch-fully-autonomous-taxi-service-in-london-next-year-142453250.html?src=rss

Apple has introduced an upgraded version of its Vision Pro headset that's powered by the company's M5 chip, its latest silicon that will also come with the new iPad Pro and MacBook Pro. The first generation of the headset was equipped with Apple's M2, so you can expect this device to be faster and come with more capabilities. Apple hasn't budged the price from $3,499 with 256GB of storage, but at least it comes with a Dual Knit Band, which adds a top strap for extra security and comfort. (Existing Vision Pro users can also buy the Dual Knit Band separately for $99.)As you'd expect, Apple claims the refreshed Vision Pro should be faster while loading apps, browsing the web and doing just about everything. The M5 chip also includes a new 10-core GPU, with better support for hardware-accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading, "enabling developers to add remarkable detail to lighting, shadows, and reflections in games like Control," according to Apple. The company also says the M5 Vision Pro renders 10 percent more pixels on its micro-OLED displays, which should make everything look a bit sharper.The M5 Vision Pro should last a bit longer than the original model, as well. Apple claims it supports up to two and a half hours of typical usage, and up to three hours of video playback. The previous model was rated for two hours of general usage and two and a half hours of video viewing.Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported a few days ago that Apple was due for another wave of product announcements. He wrote back then that the new iPad Pro and Vision Pro are already being mass produced and that Apple is "gearing up for an imminent release." Apple had originally wanted to launch a a lighter and cheaper version of the Vision Pro headset, as well, but it reportedly decided to shift its focus on the development of smart glasses. The company pulled people working on the lighter Vision Pro, Gurman said in another report, and moved them to its smart glasses project.Apple is reportedly working on a smart glasses model with no display and is meant to pair with iPhones, along with another model that's equipped with a built-in screen and can directly compete with Meta's Ray-Ban Display. The company is aiming to release the model with no screen in 2027 and the one with a screen in 2028, Gurman said."The Vision Pro is a flawed product, but it's certainly not empty," we noted in our review of the original headset. "It's as if Apple has compiled everything it's learned from building the Mac, iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods into a single device, all in a bid to avoid the Innovator's Dilemma." At first glance, the M5 Vision Pro doesn't seem to change that conclusion much, not without more content and apps built around spatial computing. A price drop and more storage on the base model would certainly make the Vision Pro more compelling, until that happens it'll remain more of a developer kit than a full-fledged consumer product.The M5 Vision Pro is now ready to pre-order and will once again set you back $3,499. Apple will start shipping the device on October 22.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/apples-new-vision-pro-gets-an-m5-chip-and-dual-knit-band-but-its-still-3499-132123957.html?src=rss

Apple's latest 11- and 13-inch iPad Pros have arrived, and though they're the first with the company's all-new M5 chip, they're otherwise largely identical to last year's models. The main reason to buy one, then, would be for the extra performance over the M4 - something that may be worthwhile to content creators and other power users looking for a tablet instead of a laptop. Last year Apple decided to debut its M4 chip with the iPad Pro lineup and not its laptops. The reason? Only the entry-level M4 was ready (and not the M4 Pro and M4 Max), so Apple decided to wait before putting in its MacBooks so it could launch the entire lineup at once. With updated Magic Keyboards, It also showed that Apple was marketing the iPad Pro as a feasible MacBook replacement for power users. The same applies with the M5, except this time the company also launched its entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro at the same time. As before, the new M5 processor uses TSMC's 3-nanometer process, as Apple reportedly decided against 2-nanometer chips due to cost considerations. The entry-level M5 comes in a couple of versions. The iPad Pro with either 256GB or 512GB of storage gets an M5 with a 9-core CPU (3 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores), 10-core GPU and 12GB of RAM. The 1TB and 2TB models get a fourth performance core and 16GB of RAM. The big upgrade here appears to be to the GPU; Apple says each of the 10 GPU cores have a Neural Accelerator on board, which will allow GPU-based AI processing to run significantly faster than on the M4. Apple claims it has more than four times the peak GPU compute performance of the M4 (which is only about 18 months old, mind you). Graphics performance should be about 45 percent higher than on the M4, as well. Overall multithreaded performance is 15 percent faster than the M4, and Apple says that video transcoding is six times faster than what the old M1 iPad Pro from 2021 delivered. As for battery life, Apple claims the same 10 hours that basically every iPad has ever been rated at. But for the first time, the iPad Pro supports fast charging - you can get up to 50 percent in 30 minutes using a 60W USB-C power adaptor. Apple is also using the C1X modem that it originally introduced last month in the iPhone Air; that'll provide the optional 5G service that Apple has offered on iPads for a few years now. There's also an N1 chip (also found in the iPhone Air), which is an Apple-designed networking chip for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and Thread connectivity. Apple claims this new chip will make features like Personal Hotspot and Airdrop more reliable while also offering improved performance on 5GHz Wi-Fi networks. As before, the 2025 iPad Airs are extremely thin and light. The 11-inch model is 5.3mm thick and tips the scales at just under one pound, while the 13-incher is just 5.1mm thick weighs 1.29 pounds. Both feature "tandem" OLED Ultra Display XDR screens that hit up to 1,000 nits brightness and peak at 1,600 nits - so they're perfect for viewing and editing HDR content. The new iPad Pro starts at $999 for the 11-inch model with 256GB of storage ($1,199 with 5G) and $1,299 for the 13-inch ($1,499 with 5G). Those are the same prices as last year - still extremely expensive, but at least not more than before. You can pre-order the new iPad Pro now, and it'll be available on October 22. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/apples-latest-ipad-pro-get-a-power-boost-with-the-new-m5-chip-131036435.html?src=rss

Xbox is at a crossroads. While the PlayStation 5 and Switch 2 continue to gain popularity, multiple price hikes for the Xbox Series S and X have killed their momentum. And with several big box retailers like Costco deciding to drop Microsoft's console from their shelves, the current-gen Xbox may be dead in the water. So what should the company do? Microsoft's most straightforward option would be to simply punt the end of the Xbox's lifecycle, regroup and come back strong with a brand new console in a year or two. On the flipside, the company could follow in Sega's footsteps after the untimely demise of the Dreamcast and become a cross-platform game publisher with a large stable of first-party studios. However, there's a third route that could fill the gap between now and whenever the next Xbox arrives that could potentially expand its reach to a whole new segment: Give handheld gaming a go. Engineering and building a new portable gaming device isn't cheap or quick. So instead of doing everything itself, Microsoft teamed up with ASUS to create the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X - a pair of Windows 11-based portable gaming PCs enhanced with Microsoft's DNA. And while it's too early to say if these handhelds will help save Xbox itself, they're more than solid portables that could have a big impact on portable gaming going forward. Editor's note: This review is focused on the ROG Xbox Ally X, primarily because that's all we have at the moment. However, the Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X share many features including the same basic design , display, button layout and software (the only difference is their color). That said, the base Xbox Ally has less impressive specs as it comes with a slower AMD Ryzen Z2 chip, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage and a smaller 60WHr battery. It's also a touch lighter (1.48 pounds vs 1.58) and has a lower price of $600 instead of $1,000. Design and display: The Xbox goes portable Sam Rutherford for Engadget When you look at the ROG Xbox Ally X, it might appear as if ASUS bolted larger grips to its previous handheld - the Ally X - and called it a day. However, the company says the Xbox Ally was redesigned from the ground up, in large part to include a number of signature features that will make Xbox faithful feel right at home. This includes things like the classic ABXY button layout, Impulse triggers with tons of travel and, of course, the requisite Xbox home button. Then smack dab in the middle of everything is a 7-inch IPS LCD screen. Speaking of the display, ASUS picked a FHD IPS panel with a 120Hz refresh rate that appears to be the exact same screen used on the Ally X. While it doesn't deliver pure blacks like you'd get from OLED, contrast was still surprisingly good. With a brightness of 500 nits (the one on our review unit was actually a touch higher at 510 nits), this display delivers almost everything you want without feeling like you need to upgrade to something like the huge 8.8-inch OLED panel on the Lenovo Legion Go 2. Sam Rutherford for Engadget Around back, there are two customizable paddles while the top edge houses a fingerprint reader and all of the Xbox Ally X's connectivity: two USB-C ports, a microSD card reader and 3.5mm audio. Notably, while both ports support charging and display capabilities, the one furthest to the left is also Thunderbolt 4 compliant. This means it has enough bandwidth to support external GPUs like ASUS' recently updated XG Mobile graphics dock. Ultimately, the ROG Xbox Ally might not look all that different from ASUS' previous handhelds, but between its buttons, triggers and those big new grips, it really does feel like you're holding a portable version of Microsoft's console. Even without Hall Effect sensors, the Xbox Ally X's joysticks are tight and responsive, while the triggers offer a ton of travel. The only thing I wish ASUS and Microsoft had paid a little more attention to is the handheld's haptics, which are fine, but they're a far cry from the expressive rumble motors you get from a DualSense controller or the Switch 2's Joy-Con. Performance: Flagship handheld power Sam Rutherford for Engadget As the higher-end model in ASUS and Microsoft's new joint handheld lineup, the ROG Xbox Ally X features a AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip with 24GB of memory (which is shared with its GPU) and 1TB of storage that can be expanded via microSD. However, thanks in part to the new full-screen Xbox experience, Microsoft tweaked a number of the handheld's background processes and services for the first time on a Windows 11-based handheld. The result is a slightly more optimized device even when compared to its closest rivals. In Cyberpunk 2077 at 1,920 x 1,080, medium graphics and FSR set to performance, the ROG Xbox Ally X hit 62.1 fps while plugged in and set to its max 35-watt Turbo mode. That's almost five fps higher than what we got from the Lenovo Legion Go 2 (57.5 fps) when its settings are similarly maxed out. Admittedly, this might not sound like a huge improvement, but it ends up being an extra seven percent performance from the same chip, which ain't bad. Meanwhile in Returnal, I got similar numbers after switching to the Ally's more energy-efficient 17-watt Performance Mode (unplugged), where it produced 42 fps at full HD on medium versus 39 fps for the Lenovo. Sam Rutherford for Engadget That said, it's important to note that the Ally's performance changes depending on whether it's plugged into the wall or not. If you want its full 35-watt Turbo Mode, you're going to need to use a power adapter, while its 17-watt Performance and 13-watt Silent modes stay the same no matter what you do. There's also a manual performance customization tool, but to access it, you'll need to switch over to ASUS' Armoury Crate app, as there isn't a place to change things directly inside the Xbox app. Software: The tailored gaming experience we needed Getting excited about the software on a gaming handheld is usually pretty difficult. However, between the aforementioned tweaks to background services and the new full-screen Xbox experience, Microsoft has managed to remove a ton of the clunkiness that typically plagues other Windows-based gaming handhelds. Instead of having to wade your way through the traditional Windows desktop before booting into a game, now you're greeted by the Xbox app upon startup (and even during initial setup), so there are fewer steps to get between you and your favorite title. Furthermore, Microsoft has come up with a revamped layout that makes core features super easy to find. The Home tab is where all your installed software is, while there are other dedicated sections for Game Pass downloads (assuming you have a subscription) cloud gaming/remote play (also via Game Pass) and the Microsoft Store. If you prefer other digital marketplaces like Steam or Epic, there are shortcuts to download installers for those stores (and a few more like GOG and Ubisoft) in the My Apps tab. You don't need to open a web browser and do things manually. To switch between apps in Microsoft's new full-screen Xbox experience, all you need to do is swipe up from the bottom of the ROG Xbox Ally X's screen. Sam Rutherford for Engadget Furthermore, hitting the Xbox button summons a handful of quick settings for all sorts of things, including the Command Center for performance, toggles for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, your Xbox friends list and a whole lot more. It's kind of like a do-everything button and it makes accessing almost all of your most important tools and features quick and easy. On top of that, there are new gestures that you can access by swiping in on the screen in different directions. Dragging your finger in from the left calls up the Xbox Game Bar overlay, even when you're in the middle of playing a game, while swiping in from the right opens your Windows notifications. But my favorite command is swiping up from the bottom, which is a new way to switch between apps (or a cooler version of Alt + Tab, depending on how you look at it). From there, you can even scroll through any programs that are currently open just by tapping the Xbox Ally's shoulder buttons. If you want to use the handheld like a real PC, you can also activate the Windows desktop from there too. Microsoft has also thoughtfully included compatibility tags on a number of games in its store to give buyers a sense of how well a game will run on the ROG Xbox Ally X. Sam Rutherford for Engadget The redesigned Xbox experience is very breezy and handles 90 to 95 percent of your traditional gaming functions, but there are still times when some of Window's underlying awkwardness shows through. Most often, I found this happens when exiting a game from a third-party store, where the Xbox Ally will spit you out into your Steam library (for example), where you'll often have to rely on touchscreen controls instead of the joysticks or the desktop mode's mouse cursor to navigate around. It's not a big deal compared to other Windows-based handhelds, and even though Microsoft has taken a big step forward on the Xbox Ally, there is still a little polishing to be done. Battery life: A solid jump in longevity One of the biggest benefits of going with the ROG Xbox Ally X is that it comes with a larger 80WHr battery than the base model (60Whr). When that is combined with improved energy efficiency from its new chip, you get very solid battery life - just as long as you don't max out the power settings. Sam Rutherford for Engadget I tested this by playing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 at full HD on medium settings and max brightness (Protip: don't do this at night if you want to get to sleep on time) and the Xbox Ally X lasted just shy of three and a half hours. That's 30 minutes longer than what I got from the Legion Go 2, although considering the latter has a much larger screen (with the same 500 nits of brightness), that difference wasn't a big shock. The bigger revelation is that when compared to the original Ally X, ASUS and Microsoft's new jointly-made device provided an extra hour of runtime, which could make a meaningful difference on a long trip. Wrap-up While Microsoft's first real foray into PC gaming handhelds isn't upending the status quo and it's way too early to say if this gadget will save Xbox as a whole, it is bringing some notable advancements. The new full-screen experience makes launching and playing games on Windows-based devices so much more seamless that it's kind of wild it took so long to get here. Sure, there are still a few edge cases where you'll have to tap the screen or flip between the Xbox app and ASUS' Armoury Create to tweak certain settings, but compared to most of its rivals, the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X is a massive upgrade in general usability. Here is a size comparison between the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X (bottom) and the Lenovo Legion Go 2 (top). Sam Rutherford for Engadget The bigger grips and a familiar button layout will instantly make longtime Xbox fans feel right at home. And thanks to the new chip and more processes and services that run in the background while you're gaming, you get class-leading performance and battery life. Aside from lackluster haptics, the ROG Xbox Ally X's biggest issue is its price. I totally get that there's a growing number of gamers who constantly crave better performance from their portable PCs. However, the trade-off for all this is a much bigger hit to your wallet. It wasn't that long ago when the going rate for a premium handheld was more like $500, which made it easier to afford. After all, those devices weren't really designed to be your main gaming rig like a laptop or desktop. Ultimately the biggest deciding factor for purchasing the ROG Xbox Ally X may be how much someone is already invested into the Xbox ecosystem. If you're a fan of other game stores or you don't have a subscription to Xbox Game Pass or a ton of friends on the platform, you won't get the full benefit of everything Microsoft has integrated into the handheld's new software. This goes double for devotees of Valve's digital store and Linux-based OS that don't need bleeding edge performance, who can safely stick to much more affordable Steam Decks or the Legion Go S. Alternatively, if you want a versatile portable with a giant OLED screen and detachable controllers, the Legion Go 2 is worth consideration as well. Though at $1,300 for the model with a Z2 Extreme chip, it's even more expensive than this new handheld Xbox. Still, despite some minor caveats, Microsoft has finally put its spin on portable PC gaming (with an assist from ASUS) and brought some welcome upgrades to the space that have made the ROG Xbox Ally X a top shelf device.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/asus-rog-xbox-ally-x-review-an-extra-life-for-xbox-130050224.html?src=rss

Every now and then, you review a product you can't get along with in any way, shape or form. Sometimes, it's about the quality of the hardware, but more often it's about the philosophy of its makers. Imagine trying to review a toilet built by, and for, aliens from the planet Zog: You can appreciate the intention behind it, but you'll never be able to praise it. That's the issue I've had with Halliday's smart glasses, because almost every design decision made by its creators feels, to me, like the wrong one. Cofounder Carter Hou conceded that some people love Halliday's approach and others haven't taken to it anywhere near as much. Sadly, I've found myself in the latter category. Halliday announced itself to the world at CES in January, dragging behind it a truckload of promises about its Wayfarer-style smart glasses. It said the glasses would be invisible to onlookers," styled to be as close to a regular pair of specs as it could manage. There'd be no outward facing camera or sensors, just a tiny interior display projecting data into the wearer's view. It talked up its proactive" AI assistant that was always listening and would pipe up with an answer when asked a question. It would be discreetly controlled with a touchpad ring, so you'd not need to visibly fiddle with your phone or the glasses' touch-sensitive arm to use it. Plus, it would weigh just 35 grams. What's not to like? The company launched a Kickstarter at the end of January, earning $3,305,917 from more than 8,000 backers. The company has already shared its first product with backers, and it's now ready to share it with retail customers. I've been testing the hardware for around a month with regular software updates. Halliday assured me that the last few issues, like inconsistent Bluetooth connectivity, should be ironed out by the time it's available to the masses. Hardware Halliday's chunky Wayfarer-style glasses are made out of plastic, with thin plastic lenses set to your prescription. Plastic is obviously easy to work with and affordable, but it also can give the appearance and feel of looking a bit cheap and flimsy. Even the temple tips are made of solid plastic, which means they can't be adjusted to suit your head shape and comfort levels.The only way to modify how they sit on your face is by contorting the nose pads, which you'll be told to do during setup. On the underside of the right temple tip, you'll find a rubber gasket covering its built-in USB-C charging port. Follow it towards the front and you'll find one of two speakers (its twin sits on the opposite arm), the touch surface for control and the power button. Sitting over the right lens is a little plastic cantilever arm, on the end of which is a 3.6mm round microLED display module. The arm can be pulled in or out and tilted up and down to put the display into your peripheral vision. The aim, as stated, was to make a small and light pair of glasses that wouldn't draw attention to themselves. Sadly, Halliday couldn't avoid the issue that plagues all smart glasses, which is that they have to be bigger to accommodate all the electronics. But, to my eye, they only just about register as a bold style choice rather than as a comically-oversized pair of specs. I keep flip-flopping on this: Half the time, they're bold, half the time, I feel like I'm wearing faux Marx-brothers glasses from a Halloween store. Daniel Cooper for Engadget The control ring is available in US sizes 8-15, and is made of silver plastic with a small clickpad section embedded. Continuing Halliday's focus on subtlety, the ring's only distinguishing mark is a small black line on one side of the clickpad to indicate the right hand side. Slide the ring on without remembering to check its orientation and you'll be trying to use the menus upside down and back to front. Like a lot of smart rings, it'll certainly stand out on your hand if you're used to thinner, daintier adornments. The control ring is available in US sizes 8-15, and is made of silver plastic with a small clickpad section embedded. Continuing Halliday's focus on subtlety, the ring's only distinguishing mark is a small black line on one side of the clickpad to indicate the right hand side. Slide the ring on without remembering to check its orientation and you'll be trying to use the menus upside down and back to front. Like a lot of smart rings, it'll certainly stand out on your hand if you're used to thinner, daintier adornments. Display Closeup image of the Halliday Smart Glasses display Daniel Cooper for Engadget It's easy enough to put a teeny-tiny display close to your eye, ostensibly tricking it into thinking it's much larger. The 3.6mm microLED module is meant to project the equivalent of a 3.5-inch display into your field of view. It's the same sort of barebones green monochrome display found in a lot of wearables since green is easy to read and not too power-hungry. Again, the focus on invisibility means you're meant to flick your eyes toward it, read what you need and flick back before anyone's really noticed. There are many reasons why this is a smart choice compared to companies using waveguide prisms embedded in the lenses itself. It saves a lot of weight, makes what you're looking at far more private and cuts down the cost. Since, after all, you can just use cheap regular or prescription lenses in the frame, rather than specialist ones with the built-in prisms. But the use of a tiny-display-close-to-your-eye is a problem if you are already a glasses wearer. After all, the screen is behind the prescription, so it's not as simple as just glancing or catching it in my peripheral vision. In my experience, I'd get a notification, look up, and then have to wait for my eyes to refocus before I could see what was going on. That's not a big deal if it's just the time or an icon telling you there's a new WhatsApp, but it's hard to read full sentences of text. Personally, I found the display to be too close and too unnaturally placed for me to comfortably use it. I tried every adjustment possible to make it easier to use, even wearing them in silly ways to no avail. And this gets worse when you're being asked to engage with the lengthy responses produced by its Proactive" AI. Reading paragraphs of text on a 3.6mm screen is a one-way ticket to the sort of eye pain you'd normally only experience after downing a pint of ice cream. If you struggle to use those sorts of displays, then you'll also struggle with the other text-heavy features the glasses offer. Most notably, its reactive" AI, translation and Cheatsheet - its teleprompter-esque service for presentations. In use Image of the rear temple tips of the Halliday Smart Glasses Daniel Cooper for Engadget Once you've followed the YouTube clip guiding you through setup, you'll control your glasses via Halliday's app. Set that up, make sure it's connected, and it'll be easy enough to run things just with the ring. You'll need to memorize a cumbersome control scheme, which has to work to overcome its limited inputs. For instance, it's easy enough to think that a click would be the dominant action, with the tap acting as the secondary one - but it's the other way around. Initially, I was clicking (which activates the notification center) rather than tapping to access a menu item. That the clickpad is so small means you'll do a fair bit of scrolling, too. Halliday's focus on lightness extended beyond what you'd wear on your face, but how much you'd need to carry in your bag on the go. Rather than build a charging case, the USB-C charger is on the temple tip, hidden behind a little rubber gasket. Except, the gasket is very difficult to actually flick out of its recess and often gets pushed further in. It got to the point where I keep a paperclip on hand to flick it out when it's time to recharge. Close up of the Control Ring and charger for the Halliday Smart Glasses Daniel Cooper for Engadget The control ring is charged magnetically, so you will be carrying around a little dongle and USB-C cable. It's not much extra weight to carry, but it is yet another thing to deal with. Plus, if you're in a hurry for power, you'll need to charge two devices simultaneously rather than just putting both in a charging case. Look, maybe this is a gripe too far, but it feels like Halliday attempted to reduce complexity and, in doing so, made things a hell of a lot fiddlier when it comes to charging. Proactive AI Image of how Halliday pitched its proactive AI. Halliday Halliday pitched its glasses as being the first" with a proactive" AI running in the background of your day to offer context-based assistance. In one of the company's examples, the system is listening to a conversation, enabling its wearer to act like a know-it-all. Certainly, it was this feature that most intrigued me as I'm sure we've all hoped for an electronic version of Gary from Veep every now and again. Image of a conversation between me and Halliday's Proactive AI Daniel Cooper for Engadget The Star Trek-esque promise of such a system clashes with its reality, since the proactive AI is just a constantly-running chatbot which treats everything as a prompt. Here's the app's own record of a conversation I had in which every line it heard gets its own response. It will even try to respond to the ums, ahs and other non-speech glue that holds speech together, saying that the line doesn't contain any factual claims." And, don't forget, all of this is being pushed into your peripheral vision for as long as the AI is active. Bear in mind you only have a limited amount of time credits with which to use the AI. So you can't have it running in the background 24/7, but on this evidence, I'm not sure that you would ever want to. Hou says the company is working on improving this but, at this point, it doesn't feel like a feature you'd want to use on a regular basis. Reactive AI The glasses' reactive AI, meanwhile, is in dire need of some sort of help, since it often refused to answer my questions and, when it did, it often got its facts wrong. On September 18, I asked it who the current manager of (Portuguese football team) Benfica was, since it had just hired a new manager. But it told me the name of the old one, who'd been fired on August 31 - which isn't ideal. Similarly, questions around basic facts concerning geography and science were either met with blank responses or lackluster answers. I know that plenty of AIs aren't perfect for up-to-the-minute information, but what else would you want to use it for? Audio memo and transcription You can record audio memos through the glasses if you need to express an idea in a hurry. It's worth noting, however, that the microphone quality is poor. It sounds like the sort of crunchy radio microphone audio you last heard in a live news broadcast from the 1980s. Given how much of the interaction with these glasses is through speech, the poor microphone quality is baffling. Sure, save on weight as much as possible, but not for the thing the glasses need to do one of their most critical jobs. Once recorded, you can then listen back to the memo in the app, and can even ask the system for a transcription. Bafflingly, you can't just press the button and then go do something else in the app. If you want your words turned into (an approximate) text record, you'll need to leave that specific pane open while it runs. I found this out after pressing the button a third time and, rather than moving to the next memo to get that transcribed, I was distracted by something on my laptop and then saw the transcript finally appear before my eyes. Music Halliday's app claims it's possible to use the glasses' built-in speakers in place of your wireless headphones. And, yes, it is technically possible to do this, in the same way that it's technically possible to steer a motorcycle with your feet or carve a block of marble with an iPhone. I'm no audiophile, but if you're looking for a better listening experience, listening to a broken record player from a mile away with two paper cups and some string is probably better. It's very much the sort of option you'd go for if you had to listen to something in the direst of emergencies - and then never again. Price and the competition If you opted to back Halliday's glasses on Kickstarter, you could pick them up for $399. For the rest of us, it will be available to order through the Halliday website for $499, with shipping due to begin at the end of October. It is available in one of three colors: Black, Gradient or Tortoisehell, with prescription lenses included in the price, at least at the time of publication. If you order now, you will also get the control ring for free, but it will eventually cost $69. In terms of rival smart glasses, the closest competitor is likely Brilliant Labs' Halo, which uses a similar standalone microLED display with the same focus on AI. Given the display option, if you think you'd struggle with Halliday, it's easy to assume you won't be happy with these either. Halo will set you back $299, although it's worth mentioning that it'll only be sold in limited quantities. One alternative is Rokid's forthcoming Glasses, which are equipped with the sort of waveguide display lenses I prefer. The company promises it'll offer real-time translation, a built-in AI assistant and an outward-facing camera. Would-be backers can pick them up for $549 on Kickstarter at present, with a retail price likely closer to $750 when they launch toward the end of this year. But if I was looking for a product that did a lot of what Halliday offered, albeit in a much more polished package, it'd be Even Realities G1. There's a lot to like about the G1, as it offers a more limited feature set, but one in which things actually work a lot better. The one downside is the price, since you'll need to fork out $600 for the glasses and another $150 for the lenses. The big tech elephant in the room, of course, is Meta's Ray-Ban Display glasses that seem to pay off on the promise of smart glasses' premise. They're obviously pricey, retailing for $799, but have all of the gadgets and gizmos you are likely to want and need. It ships with a 600 x 600 full color display in the lens, letting you engage with notifications a lot more like you would if you were using your phone. Wrap-up Close up of the Halliday Smart Glasses ring Daniel Cooper for Engadget My issues with the display certainly didn't endear Halliday to me. But I think that the product is less than the sum of its parts, both from a hardware and software standpoint. The proactive" AI is perhaps the biggest disappointment, given it's just a chatbot responding to every interaction like a prompt. In every facet, the company prioritized things that weren't worth the effort. What appeared to be a series of great ideas on paper is, in reality, not all that. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/halliday-glasses-review-ambitious-smart-glasses-with-frustrating-flaws-130000207.html?src=rss

Japan's government has asked OpenAI not to infringe on anime and manga content that it called "irreplaceable treasures," according to a report from ITMedia seen by IGN. The request was made by a key minister in charge of AI and IP in response to numerous videos from OpenAI's Sora 2 generator that use copyrighted material from Japanese studios."We have requested OpenAI not to engage in any actions that could constitute copyright infringement," said cabinet minister Minoru Kiuchi at a press conference last week. "Anime and manga are irreplaceable treasures that we can be proud of around the world."Launched on October 1, OpenAI's Sora 2 can generate 1080p videos up to 20 seconds long with sound. The company also released the Sora app that uses Sora 2 to generate TikTok-style videos of nearly anything. Anime has been a key theme, with many short videos replicating copyrighted materials from franchises like DragonBall and Pokemon.Despite the demand, Japan has been one of the more progressive nations when it comes to artificial intelligence. The nation's AI Promotion Act aims to boost the use of AI as an economic growth driver, while also outlining guidelines around copyright infringement. However, the topic of enforcement is still fuzzy so the government is trying to get a better grip on it. "Japan bears a responsibility to take the lead on making rules [around AI and copyright], precisely because we are a country... [that creates] anime, games, and music," said parliament member Akihisa Shiozaki on his blog.Last month, OpenAI said it had contacted studios to give them the option of opting out of Sora 2 training on their materials, Reuters reported. The new process requires movie studios and other content owners to explicitly ask OpenAI to exclude their copyright material from videos generated by Sora. It's not known which, if any, Japanese studios the company has contacted.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/japan-asks-openai-not-to-infringe-on-irreplaceable-manga-and-anime-content-120008580.html?src=rss

Samsung is back with another event this fall, which it has dubbed Worlds Wide Open. The company said that it will use this opportunity to officially unveil its Android XR headset, internally known as Project Moohan. The livestreamed event will take place on Tuesday, October 21 at 10PM ET and you can watch either on Samsung's website or on its YouTube channel.It's possible that Samsung always anticipated having an event next week, but it's also possible that the company's hand was forced after a big leak last week disclosed several notable details about Project Moohan. According to the leaks, the headset's official name will be Samsung Galaxy XR and it is the first commercial product to leverage the Android XR platform for augmented reality. We knew Samsung was aiming to release this headset sometime this year, so it's very likely we'll learn both the release date and the price during Worlds Wide Open.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsung-will-introduce-its-android-xr-headset-at-a-galaxy-event-on-october-21-230000605.html?src=rss

DirecTV will begin replacing your TV's screensaver with AI-generated ads thanks to a new partnership. The entertainment brand is working with Glance, an AI company that has received backing from Google and developed an on-device AI tool alongside the tech giant. The new AI-powered screensavers will begin rolling out to DirecTV Gemini devices early next year.Glance's press release about the deal presents the tech's capability in lofty language: "Shop smarter by discovering and engaging with products and brands in an AI-led virtual and visually immersive shopping experience that feels native to TV." In practice, however, it sounds like a viewer can use the Glance mobile app to do things like insert themselves or other people into AI-generated videos appearing on their televisions. Then they can use the voice remote to alter the person's wardrobe and then buy items similar to the AI-generated images from your phone."We are making television a lean-in experience versus lean back," Rajat Wanchoo, Glance's group vice president of commercial partnerships, told The Verge, which initially picked up news of the partnership. "We want to give users a chance to use the advancements that have happened in generative AI to create a ChatGPT moment for themselves, but on TV."It's unclear how many DirecTV customers want to have a ChatGPT moment for themselves, but questions about whether people want or need a feature hasn't stopped most AI companies from pushing ahead with business plans. The press release doesn't note whether viewers will be able to turn off this screensaver feature once it's live.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/directv-will-start-replacing-screensavers-with-ai-generated-ads-next-year-224436035.html?src=rss

Gregg Mayles, the director of Sea of Thieves and designer on Donkey Kong Country, has announced that he's left Rare. News of Mayles' exit was first reported in July 2025 during a rash of layoffs and game cancellations across Xbox Games Studios, but the short poem he shared on X today makes it official.With a 36-year tenure at the studio, Mayles saw its transition from an exclusive Nintendo partner to a Microsoft subsidiary. He helped design games like Battletoads, created Banjo-Kazooie and when studio founders Tim and Chris Stamper left in 2007, stepped up and became Rare's creative director. Mayles also led the team behind Sea of Thieves, one of Rare's modern successes.

Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on X that the Department of Justice contacted Facebook in order to have a group removed that she claimed "was being used to dox and target" US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents operating in Chicago. We reached out to Meta for confirmation and a representative said, "This Group was removed for violating our policies against coordinated harm," however they did not confirm the name of the group or whether the DOJ was involved in the action.Officers for the immigration agency have reportedly been moving through Chicago with facial coverings, no name tags and sometimes in vehicles with no license plates, although a US District Judge ruled that all ICE agents who are not undercover are required to display visible identification while operating in the Chicagoland area.The Department of Justice has demanded that other tech companies remove content the current administration has deemed critical of its immigration policies and practices. At the start of the month, Apple removed ICEBlock, an app for tracking the movements of immigration agents, from the App Store following similar pressure from Bondi. "Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never the right move," ICEBlock developer Joshua Aaron said in an interview following the action. "Our mission has always been to protect our neighbors from the terror this administration continues to reign down on the people of this nation."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-removes-facebook-group-for-tracking-ice-agents-after-doj-pressure-203429574.html?src=rss

In order to avoid paying billions of dollars in fines for violating the European Union's Digital Markets Act, Google is considering changing how search results are displayed, Reuters reports. EU regulators first took issue with Google's Search and Play Store businesses in March 2025, claiming it favored its own services in search results over third-party options and prevented developers from informing customers of alternative ways of accessing apps.One of regulators main issues with Google Search was that Google appeared to favor results from services like Google Flights or Google Hotels over ones from "vertical search services," providers that specialize in displaying search results from a specific industry, like Expedia or Hotels.com. To avoid fines, Google now wants Search to give VSS businesses equal treatment in results."We will create the opportunity for each VSS to show its own box on Search. A VSS box will be populated with results from that VSS inventory," Google said in a proposal viewed by Reuters. Results from Google's own services will exist with the same formatting alongside, and the winning VSS box will be displayed in search results based on "objective and non-discriminatory criteria." Importantly, search results from actual airlines and car rental companies won't be excluded, they'll also appear in a box "above or below the VSS box depending on the relevance to the user's query."Engadget has asked Google to comment on Reuters'report and to confirm the details of its proposed changes to Google Search. We'll update this article if we hear back.Like Apple, Google faces significant scrutiny from the EU because of its monopolistic control over its various platforms and services. The threat of fines from the DMA has forced Apple to open up its products to third-party app stores, among a host of other changes. Clearly, Google is willing to tweak what once seemed like untouchable pillars of its business to avoid fines, too. Whether these proposed changes will be enough for the regulators remains to be seen, though.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/google-reportedly-offers-to-tweak-search-results-to-avoid-eu-fine-193940005.html?src=rss

Customer service support company 5CA has released a statement contradicting claims by Discord that it was the victim of a hack last month. On October 3, Discord disclosed a data breach that the company says included a small number" of government IDs like driver's licenses and passports, which some users had submitted to verify their ages. Days later the company updated its statement to name 5CA as the target of the hack, which Discord contracts as part of its customer service efforts. It also disclosed that the "small number" of government IDs encompasses roughly 70,000 users."We are aware of media reports naming 5CA as the cause of a data breach involving one of our clients. Contrary to these reports, we can confirm that none of 5CA's systems were involved, and 5CA has not handled any government-issued IDs for this client. All our platforms and systems remain secure, and client data continues to be protected under strict data protection and security controls," the company's statement reads in part. The company goes on to explicitly state "the incident occurred outside of our systems and that 5CA was not hacked."5CA says that a preliminary investigation showed that the incident may have been the result of "human error," though it offers no details as to what exactly that implies. In a recent interview with BleepingComputer, the hackers who claimed responsibility for the breach said they had access to Discord's Zendesk account for 58 hours on September 20. The group claims they gained entry through compromised login credentials belonging to a support agent employed by a third-party company. Discord has not yet responded to the company's claims.Update 2:58 PM ET: Added more context about the breach.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/the-company-discord-blamed-for-its-recent-breach-says-it-wasnt-hacked-175536278.html?src=rss

Kobo is making a remote control for its line of ereaders. The appropriately-named Kobo Remote costs $30 and will be available to purchase on November 4.A remote control for an ereader may seem silly to some, but avid readers will likely appreciate this accessory. It's basically a wireless page turner, so users can lay in bed and read all day without having to physically hold the device or prop a hand up to push a button every 30 seconds. Kobo is calling it "the ideal reading companion."It has been custom-built for Kobo products and will be available in both black and white, which matches the company's other products. It can integrate with any Kobo ereader with Bluetooth functionality, which includes the Libra 2 and the well-reviewed Clara Colour.In a Canadian winter, we know that sometimes maximum reading comfort means burrowing down in the blankets, tucking yourself in and not emerging until spring," said Rakuten Kobo CEO Michael Tamblyn. The Kobo Remote is the perfect accessory for peak immersive reading; it's an invitation to lounge deeper, multitask smarter and simply enjoy reading without limits, no matter whether your environment is beach or blankets."The remote will be available in multiple regions, including the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, Singapore, Japan and many others. The company says it'll be sharing more details about the remote soon, but we aren't sure what details could be left to share. It's a remote control for an ereader. Maybe it can do one or two unexpected things.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/kobo-made-a-remote-control-for-its-ereaders-185010955.html?src=rss

OpenAI announced today that it is creating an advisory council centered on its users' mental and emotional wellness. The Expert Council on Well-being and AI comprises eight researchers and experts on the intersection of technology and mental health. Some of the members were experts that OpenAI consulted as it developed parental controls. Topics of safety and protecting younger users have become more of a talking point for all artificial intelligence companies, including OpenAI, after lawsuits questioned their complicity in multiple cases where teenagers committed suicide after sharing their plans with AI chatbots.This move sounds like a wise addition, but the effectiveness of any advisor hinges on listening to their insights. We've seen other tech companies establish and then utterly ignore their advisory councils; Meta is one of the notable recent examples. And the announcement from OpenAI even acknowledges that its new council has no real power to guide its operations: "We remain responsible for the decisions we make, but we'll continue learning from this council, the Global Physician Network, policymakers, and more, as we build advanced AI systems in ways that support people's well-being." It may become clearer how seriously OpenAI is taking this effort when it starts to disagree with the council, whether the company is genuinely committed to mitigating the serious risks of AI or whether this is a smoke and mirrors attempt to paper over its issues.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/openai-forms-advisory-council-on-wellbeing-and-ai-183815365.html?src=rss

OpenAI plans to open the floodgates to more adult uses of ChatGPT starting in December, according to a new post from CEO Sam Altman. The company announced that it would add parental controls and automatic age detection features in September, and it seems like a benefit of sorting out children from adults is an ability to offer more freedom in what ChatGPT can show users."In December, as we roll out age-gating more fully and as part of our 'treat adult users like adults' principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults," Altman says. Some avid ChatGPT users already regularly manipulate the chatbot to engage in NSFW conversations, but Altman's announcement sounds more like tacit approval from OpenAI that those use-cases are okay.

Spotify is taking the video versions of some of its podcasts to another platform entirely: Netflix. Starting in the US in early 2026 (with more markets and shows to follow), Netflix will start offering sports, culture, lifestyle and true crime podcasts that Spotify Studios and The Ringer produce.Nine sports podcasts will be available at the jump, including The Bill Simmons Podcast, The Zach Lowe Show, Fairway Rollin' and The Ringer's F1, fantasy football, NFL and NBA shows. Other video podcasts that are coming to Netflix include The Rewatchables, The Recipe Club, Dissect, Conspiracy Theories and Serial Killers.Netflix sees these podcasts as complementary to its current offerings (The Ringer F1 Show, for instance, will sit neatly alongside Drive to Survive). Of course, for Spotify, this is a way to get more eyeballs and eardrums on its original programming.With TV viewing becoming a bigger priority for YouTube over the last few years, this seems like a way for Netflix to bite back in the battle for consumer attention, given the prevalence of video podcasts on Google's platform. Many people use streaming services for background comfort sound, and turning to podcasts or talk-radio style formats (something Disney+ also offers with The Rich Eisen Show on weekdays) may be a way for them to do that after pulling the plug on cable and broadcast TV.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/some-spotify-video-podcasts-are-coming-to-netflix-180000074.html?src=rss

YouTube is bringing a wave of quality of life improvements to its platform. These visual updates and new features will roll out globally starting this week.The main update to YouTube is a redesigned video player that has made the icons and UI elements to obscure less content. This new player design will appear on mobile, web and TV devices. Some users have had access to this feature for about a month, so it may not be brand new to everyone. The seek feature where a viewer can double-tap to skip has also been updated in a way that YouTube says is "more modern and less intrusive" and transitions between tabs have also been upgraded on mobile.For those of you who spend a lot of time in the comments, you'll see a new threaded approach to replies. This update aims "to provide a more focused reading experience within the replies panel." The process of adding videos to playlists and the Watch Later queue has also been simplified and adjusted to be a "smoother and more visual" experience. Finally, some content will start displaying little animations when you hit the like button. The blog post gives music videos and sports videos as examples of where users may start seeing the flashier visual.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/youtube/youtube-rolls-out-its-redesigned-video-player-globally-174609883.html?src=rss

X has long been a hotbed for fake accounts, bots and other scammy behavior. Many of those dynamics have been exacerbated by the rise of paid verification, which boosts the visibility of anyone who pays for a subscription. Now, the company is running a small experiment that could help users better identify potentially suspicious accounts.The service is starting to test a new "about this account" feature that will provide details about when an account joined the platform, where the person running it is based, how many times the username has been changed and how the account is connected to X. The feature is a lot like the "page transparency" information on Facebook, which provides similar details about when a given page was created and where the people running it are based."When you read content on X, you should be able to verify its authenticity," X's head of product, Nikita Bier, shared in a post about the change. "This is critical to getting a pulse on important issues happening in the world."If fully rolled out, this type of feature could help people on X understand a lot of common scams and other deceptive behavior on the platform. For example, scammers often change the handle of a recently compromised account in order to trick an account's existing followers. And understanding the location of an account could help users root out people lying about their identity.However, it sounds like it could be some time before the feature is implemented in a way that could be broadly useful. Bier said that initially X will show this info on "a handful of profiles of X team members" - most of whom already have an official "X" badge on their profiles - in order to get feedback on the change.

SteelSeries just released a refresh of its popular Arctis Nova 7 midrange gaming headset. The Nova 7 Gen 2 offers significantly improved battery life, with an increase of around 40 percent when compared to the original version. This translates to 54 hours of use per charge, which is a mighty fine metric. There's quick-charging that can provide six more hours of use in 15 minutes at the outlet.It charges via USB-C and can simultaneously play audio from both a 2.4GHz wireless connection and Bluetooth audio. This means that users can mix and match audio sources, which comes in handy when gaming. The headset connects wirelessly to all major gaming consoles, in addition to PCs and phones.The Arctis Nova 7 Gen 2 integrates with the company's mobile app. This offers more than 200 presets for specific games, all of which adjust the EQ to match what's being played. On PC, the presets will automatically adjust depending on the game.These are headphones intended for gaming, so they also include a noise-cancelling microphone. This little boom mic can be hidden within the headset and disabled when using a standalone microphone.As for aesthetics, the Nova 7 looks a lot like the company's high-end headsets. It's available in three colors, including black, white and magenta. The headset is available to purchase right now and costs $200. It does lack a few features included with its higher-priced cousins, like the swappable battery system and active noise cancellation.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/steelseries-updated-nova-7-gaming-headset-offers-much-better-battery-life-171435527.html?src=rss

Spotify has introduced a new "managed accounts" feature aimed at younger listeners. Initially piloted last year and launching in seven new markets, including the US, today, it allows parents and guardians with a Spotify Premium Family plan to allocate their children a dedicated profile with their own personalized recommendations and custom playlists.The idea is that the adults can filter out explicit content, limit the playback of certain artists and hide video playback features, including Canvas, should they want to. Users on this profile can't use interactivity features like Messages either.Perhaps most importantly of all for some, a managed account also ensures that your personal Wrapped results at the end of the year aren't dominated by whatever TikTok-viral songs the kids have been obsessively playing on repeat for months - and they won't mess with your Discover Weekly algorithm either. Spotify's 'Exclude from your Taste Profile' feature already offers a way of keeping the nonsense your kids might be listening to away from your own recommended content, but this feels like a cleaner option for families.Standard Spotify Premium features like daylist and the aforementioned Discover Weekly remain available to someone using a managed account, making it a better option for kids becoming interested in music (they may even have gotten hooked on a band you've been listening to in the car) than the Spotify Kids app, which is very much designed for the 'Baby Shark' devotees. It's probably helpful to think of a managed account as a bridge between that and an unrestricted Premium account where all the music in the world is at your fingertips.To set up a managed account, the plan owner has to go into their account settings within the Spotify app and select "Add a Member," followed by selecting "Add a listener aged under 13." The app will provide further instructions from there. As a reminder, a Spotify Premium Family plan is required to set up a managed account. This currently costs $20 per month.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/spotifys-managed-accounts-will-help-keep-your-kids-from-wrecking-your-music-taste-profile-154406843.html?src=rss

SpaceX's second-generation Starship vehicle has just made a graceful exit. The company achieved every major objective it set for the super-heavy lift vehicle's 11th flight test, the second-gen Starship's final flight, which launched from Starbase in Texas on October 13. It followed another successful test in August, which saw Starship deploy its payload for the first time ever. Before those two most recent flights, SpaceX suffered a series of failures: Starship exploded during its ascent stage in the company's seventh and eighth tests, and it failed to deploy its payload during its ninth test. Another Starship vehicle blew up on the ground during a routine test while SpaceX was preparing for its 10th flight.All of the vehicle's 33 Raptor engines ignited upon launch, and the stage separation and first-stage ascent went smoothly. The Super Heavy booster splashed down into the ocean as planned, while Starship was able to deploy all its Starlink simulators before re-entering the atmosphere. During its reentry burn, SpaceX intentionally stressed the vehicle to determine the capabilities of its heatshield. And with just a few minutes left to the flight, the vehicle executed a banking maneuver to "mimic the trajectory that future missions returning to Starbase will fly."The company says it will now focus on developing the next generation of Starship and Super Heavy. It has multiple versions of the vehicle and the booster being prepared for tests at the moment, and it expects them to be used for the first Starship orbital flights and operational payload missions.

It's safe to say the Nintendo Switch 2 is the game console to get this year, and if you already got your hands on one, you've probably loaded it up with all your old Switch games and new Switch 2 games. If you haven't thought about adding more storage to the console, now's the time to do so. The Switch 2, unfortunately and inconveniently, cannot work with just any old microSD card - it only works with newer microSD Express cards. But now you can actually pick up one of these new cards on sale. This 128GB PNY microSD Express card is 15 percent off and down to $38. Engadget's Jeff Dunn has been testing microSD Express cards since the Switch 2 launched. The best microSD Express card for Switch 2 at the moment is really the one you can most easily afford. While the cards he's tried out so far didn't perform identically in our benchmark tests, the differences in overall performance and load times will be tough for most people to notice. Thankfully, the ones he's tested so far have been good - there isn't a bad one in the bunch, and while the most consistent performer was the SanDisk microSD Express card, you won't really sacrifice by getting a different one. In fact, at least in the case of this deal, you'll be gaining by saving some cash. PNY's card in particular was actually slightly faster than SanDisk's in our testing when it came to moving games from the card back to the Switch 2's internal storage. However, it was a bit slower in writing games to the card itself. That just means you may wait a few extra minutes before you can open Mario Kart World and get to racing, but for most people, the difference will be negligible.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/pick-up-this-nintendo-switch-2-compatible-microsd-express-card-for-less-than-40-134147278.html?src=rss

Therabody just revealed a bunch of new products, including the TheraFace Mask Glo. This MF Doom-looking full-face mask offers quite a different experience from the pre-existing TheraFace Pro. The Pro is essentially a face massager, but the Mask Glo is a giant mask that uses LED lights to "reduce fine lines and wrinkles, firm and tighten skin and even tone and texture."The company promises results in "as little as eight weeks" with daily 12-minute sessions. The mask has been cleared by the FDA and includes 504 medical-grade LEDs to deliver "an effective, full-face treatment." It also doubles as a Halloween mask if you are so inclined. Tis the season. The TheraFace Mask Glo is available to order today and costs $380.The Theragun Mini Plus is a portable version of its popular massage gun, but with one feature missing from the original Mini. This one has heat. It combines "percussive massage with consistent, rapid heat." Therabody says this results in a "benefits 3x faster than percussive massage alone."TherabodyIt features three massage speeds, three heat levels and app-guided routines to target specific muscle groups. The gun is TSA-approved, so bring it on a plane. The Theragun Mini Plus is available today and costs $280.The company also released a new version of the Theragun Prime massage gun, which costs $330, and the Theragun Sense massage gun. That last one features an LCD screen and real-time pressure feedback to make sure people are using it right. It costs $300.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/therabody-just-introduced-the-theraface-mask-glo-which-uses-leds-to-reduce-wrinkles-123044315.html?src=rss

TiVo has confirmed that it has stopped selling its DVR set-top boxes, marking the end of an era that changed how we watch television forever. As first reported earlier this month by Cord Cutters News, TiVo Corporation quietly pulled its once-groundbreaking digital video recorder from its website. Holding company Xperi later confirmed that the listing was removed on October 1.I can confirm that as of October 1, 2025, TiVo stopped selling physical DVR products, including hardware and accessories, both online and through agents," a TiVo spokesperson confirmed to PCMag. TiVo no longer manufactures hardware, and our remaining inventory is now depleted, though we will continue to offer support for the products going forward."The TiVo box revolutionized television upon its launch in 1999, allowing viewers to pause, rewind and record live television. There was a time when you would just miss the start of a show if you weren't punctual, and you'd have to sync grabbing a snack with a commercial during the big game. You also had to actually watch the commercials, something that is unfortunately making a comeback with an increase in ad-supported streaming.The DVR pioneer is now a software company. It has been producing TiVo OS almost exclusively in the European market since 2022, though the smart TV OS premiered in the US this year via Sharp. The Sharp Smart TV Powered by TiVo" launched as a 55-inch QLED display with 4K resolution and HDR support. TiVo OS functions like many other television operating systems, aggregating streaming services and offering its own library of free and paid content.TiVo will still offer customer support for its now-discontinued boxes, which bodes well for customers who have purchased a lifetime plan.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/tivo-has-discontinued-its-dvr-boxes-123037999.html?src=rss

NVIDIA's DGX Spark AI computer revealed earlier this year goes on sale today for $3,999, the company announced. Though relatively tiny, it hosts the the company's entire AI platform including GPUs and CPUs, along with NVIDIA's AI software stack "into a system small enough for a lab or an office," NVIDIA said.The Spark isn't something you'd buy to play Baldur's Gate 3, though. It's designed to give developers, researchers and data scientists enough computer power to run complex AI models. Early recipients of the PCs include Anaconda, Google, Hugging Face, Meta and Microsoft. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang even hand-delivered a unit to Elon Musk at SpaceX's headquarter in Starbase, Texas.The DGX has plenty of power on offer despite its diminutive 2.6 pound size. It boasts NVIDIA's GB10 super system-on-chip that weds a 20-core ARM CPU with a Blackwell GPU powered by the same number of cores as an RTX 5070 GPU. It's outfitted with 128GB of LPDDR5x RAM shared between the CPU and GPU and includes 4TB of NVMe storage, along with four USB-C ports, Wi-Fi 7 and an HDMI connector. NVDIA calls it "the world's smallest AI supercomputer."The DGX Spark runs Nvidia's DGX OS, a custom version of Ubuntu Linux that's configured with AI software. With that, developers can access NVIDIA AI models, libraries and microservices in order to do chores like refining image generation or creating AI chatbots.The DGX Spark is also an entry point for similar machines. Other vendors like Dell, HP, Lenovo and ASUS showed off similar AI-oriented mini PC's at Computex this year using the same GB10 chip, with Acer's Veriton GN100 being one example.The DGX Spark mini PC is now on sale for $3,999 through NVIDIA and its partners. While not cheap, it's a drop in the bucket for AI developers and all of the companies listed above, and considering the hardware inside, the price doesn't seem unreasonable. NVIDIA is also working on the DGX Station that will feature GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip, with 20 petaflops of performance and 784GB of unified system memory. A price has yet to be announced for that modelThis article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/nvidia-starts-selling-its-3999-dgx-spark-ai-developer-pc-120034479.html?src=rss

Instagram is tightening the settings on its "teen accounts" to add new limits on what kids on the platform are able to see. Older teens will also no longer be able to opt out of the default stricter settings without parental approval.Meta first introduced teen accounts for Instagram a year ago, when it began automatically moving teens into the more locked-down accounts that come with stricter privacy settings and parental controls. The company recently rolled out the accounts for teens on Facebook and Messenger too, and has used AI tools to detect teens that are lying about their age.While teen accounts are meant to address long-running criticism about Meta's handling of teen safety on its apps, the measures have been widely criticized as not going far enough to protect the company's most vulnerable users. A recent report from safety advocates at Heat Initiativefound that "young teen users today continue to be recommended or exposed to unsafe content and unwanted messages at alarmingly high rates while using Instagram Teen Accounts." (Meta called the report "deeply subjective.")Now, Meta is locking down teen accounts even more. With the latest changes, teens will no longer be able to follow or see content from accounts that "regularly share age-inappropriate content" or that seem "age-inappropriate" based on their bio or username. Meta says it will also block these accounts from appearing in teens' recommendations or in search results in the app.Instagram will also block a "a wider range of mature search terms" for teens, including words like "alcohol," "gore," and intentional misspellings of these words, which is a common tactic to avoid Instagram's filters. And, even if an account a teen already follows shares a post that goes against these rules, teens should be prevented from seeing it, even if it's sent to their DMs.Instagram will block teens from searching for more term associated with inappropriate content,.MetaWhile these changes may seem like Meta once again filling somewhat obvious gaps in its safety features, the company says the revamp is meant to make the content teens encounter on Instagram more like a PG-13 movie. "Just like you might see some suggestive content or hear some strong language in a PG-13 movie, teens may occasionally see something like that on Instagram - but we're going to keep doing all we can to keep those instances as rare as possible," the company explained in a blog post.That's a somewhat confusing analogy as there's a fairly wide spectrum of what might appear in a PG-13 movie. Meta also says that some of its rules for teens are more restrictive than what teens might see in a PG-13 movie. For example, the app aims to prevent teens from seeing any kind of "sexually suggestive" content or images of "near nudity" even though that type of content might appear in movies rated for 13-year-olds.For parents that want even tighter restrictions, Instagram is also adding a new "limited content" setting that filters "even more" content from teens' view (Meta didn't explain what exactly would be restricted). The setting also prevents teens from accessing any comments on the platform, either on their own posts or other users'. Finally, Meta is testing a new reporting feature for parents that use Instagram's parental control settings to monitor their teens' use of the app. With the feature, parents can flag specific posts they feel are inappropriate to trigger a review by Meta.Meta says the latest changes will be rolling out "gradually" to teen accounts in the US, UK, Canada and Australia to start and that it will eventually "add additional age-appropriate content protections for teens on Facebook."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/instagram-makes-teen-accounts-more-restrictive-120000653.html?src=rss

After more than a decade of service, Microsoft is declaring the end of Windows 10's usable life. If your machine still uses it, rest assured it'll continue to work, but you won't see any more software and security updates. If your machine is compatible, you'll be able to upgrade to Windows 11 for free, or this can provide the justification you need to buy a new machine.But there's also a way to keep your status quo without the additional stress, at least for the next year. It's possible to sign up to Microsoft's Extended Security updates program, giving you an extra year of software and security patches. It won't cost you any money, but you will be expected to sign up to Microsoft's cloud services.If you'd like to keep Windows 10 running and safe, you can head over to our comprehensive guide on what to do. And, if you're ready to upgrade, check out our guide on the best Windows laptops to choose your next purchase.- Dan CooperGet Engadget's newsletter delivered direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!The news you might have missed

Ofcom has slapped 4chan with a 20,000 ($26,700) fine for failing to comply with the internet and telecommunications regulator's request for information under the UK's Online Safety Act of 2023. The regulator has released an update for 11 of the investigations it opened after the first of its online safety codes became enforceable in March this year. Apparently, 4chan has ignored its requests for a copy of its illegal harms risk assessment and to provide information about its qualifying worldwide revenue. This is the first fine Ofcom has handed down under the new law, which was designed to prevent children from accessing harmful content online and which has prompted websites like Reddit and X to put up age verification measures.When the regulator launch its probe into 4chan in June, it said it received complaints about illegal content on the anonymous online board. It doesn't exactly come as a surprise that 4chan refuses to give the regulator information about the risks of illegal content on its website: Back in August, the service filed a lawsuit against Ofcom, arguing that the enforcement of the UK's Online Safety Act violates Americans' freedom of speech. "This fine is a clear warning to those who fail to remove illegal content or protect children from harmful material," said Liz Kendall, the UK Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. The regulator is also imposing an additional penalty of 100 ($133) per day on 4chan until it complies with its requests for information.Ofcom has announced the results of other investigations, as well, such as finding "serious compliance concerns" with two file-sharing services that have now deployed an automated tool that can detect and quickly remove uploads with child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Four other file-sharing services that were also under investigation for CSAM chose to geoblock access from UK IP addresses instead, so the regulator closed their cases.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/uk-regulator-fines-4chan-for-ignoring-online-safety-act-demands-045026169.html?src=rss

Microsoft is continuing to roll out in-house AI models, further decreasing its reliance on long-standing partnership with OpenAI. Today, the company introduced MAI-Image-1, its first internally-developed image-generating AI model. According to the blog post, MAI-Image-1 is particularly good for creating photorealistic results, and can generate natural lighting and landscapes. For now, the model is being tested on LMArena, and Microsoft said it plans to roll out MAI-Image-1 to Copilot and its Bing Image Creator "very soon."Over the summer, Microsoft made its first break from collaborating with OpenAI when it unveiled its first two in-house trained models, MAI-Voice-1 and MAI-1-preview. At that time, Microsoft AI division leader Mustafa Suleyman said in an interview that the company had "an enormous five-year roadmap that we're investing in quarter after quarter." So far, it's at least setting a solid clip of releases.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-debuts-its-first-in-house-ai-image-generator-224153867.html?src=rss

Google is tweaking how sponsored results will appear in Search. Going forward, it will group any text ads on the Search page into a "Sponsored results" section that will appear at the top of the screen. The size of the ads is unchanged and Google says there will never be more than four ads in a grouping. Once you scroll past the section with ads, you can click a button to hide all sponsored results.According to Google, "the new design helps people navigate the top of the page more easily." Maybe that's because people have gotten used to automatically looking farther down the search results to skip the AI Overviews. Google's announcement even noted that the sponsored tab might appear either above or below its AI-generated summary. What's another second of scrolling to actually reach information? But lest you scroll too far, Google will also have a "Sponsored results" section at the very bottom of the page that can only be hidden after you've seen those hits.The new approach is currently rolling out globally on mobile and desktop platforms.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-is-making-search-ads-more-and-less-avoidable-215658127.html?src=rss

Days ahead of the next Pokemon game release, Centro Leaks is back with another batch of possible leaks about the franchise. The source claims that the same hacker behind last year's so-called Teraleak has released more information they obtained from datamining files owned by Pokemon developer Game Freak that shows the roadmap for all upcoming projects the company has in the works. And there appear to be quite a few of them.This type of hacked information may not be an accurate reflection of Game Freak's actual plans, and any alleged details about the games may not appear in final iterations of the studio's titles. And even if these files are genuine, some of the planning documents are supposedly from 2020, so hardly the freshest info. With those caveats in mind, here's an overview of what the datamining revealed.The leaker claims that the Gen 10 game will be called Pokemon Wind and Waves. Its theme is "infinity" and the project is slated for a 2026 release with a DLC planned for 2027. The datamine also revealed that an early build of the game treated the central area as an MMO-style lobby, where players could see and interact with each other as well as access quest boards. Wind and Waves could also have an MMO raid boss and may give players the ability to explore underwater.A bunch of other details about the plot, characters and mechanics may have been uncovered in the leak.

It's been an interesting few months in the realm of streaming service branding. Warner Bros. Discovery reverted Max back to HBO Max after a baffling decision to trim the name in the first place. Disney made Hulu the "global general entertainment brand" on Disney+ when it rebranded the Star hub on the service. Now Apple would like you to know that it's changing the name of its streaming service too. Going forward, Apple TV+ is now just Apple TV.The company revealed the news in very lowkey fashion, at the end of a press release about when its F1 movie will land on Apple TV, the streaming service with a monthly subscription (December 12, FYI). Apple TV+ is now simply Apple TV, with a vibrant new identity," the company said without elaborating.Apple does like to keep things clean, and shearing off the plus sign is one way of doing that. But oversimplification can cause greater confusion.As Apple states in its own press release, Apple TV is available on the Apple TV app" and For a limited time, customers who purchase and activate a new iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or Mac can enjoy three months of Apple TV for free." Did no one at Apple's (generally very effective) marketing team spot the problem with this? Buying Apple TV to get free Apple TV sounds like a recursive capitalist fever dream that will never end.As it stands, you can turn on your Apple TV device to open the Apple TV app to watch Apple TV. There are lots of things in the Apple TV app that aren't actually Apple TV shows or movies and you may have to pay for those separately. The press release also states that you can watch F1 right now if you buy it on Apple TV through the Apple TV app, so you don't have to wait for the film to make its global streaming debut" on Apple TV. What a mess.Apple hasn't fully rolled out the change yet, as there are still plenty of references to Apple TV+" on the streaming service's website. It's still referred to as Apple TV+ on the TV app's listing on the App Store too. I'm interested to see how confusing things really get if, in the coming months, Apple reveals a refreshed Apple TV. You know, that device you can use to watch Apple TV.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/apple-tv-is-now-just-apple-tv-200644609.html?src=rss

In a bulletin on Friday, GM announced that it will end its HYDROTEC brand's work on hydrogen fuel cell development. Instead, GM will focus its R&D efforts on batteries, charging technologies and electric vehicles. The company said it will continue its Fuel Cell System Manufacturing joint venture with Honda, which creates cells for data centers and power generation.The post from GM said that due to limited infrastructure and high costs, hydrogen cells simply haven't taken off for consumer vehicles. Lately, the automotive industry seems to agree. GM's shift follows a similar move in February from Toyota, which isn't completely giving up the ghost but instead pivoted its hydrogen cell projects to focus on industrial applications rather than consumer ones.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gm-ends-development-of-hydrogen-fuel-cells-195212217.html?src=rss

Google's Nano Banana AI image editor became something of a viral sensation when it launched last month. Now the tool is being integrated into a bunch of pre-existing Google products, like Search, NotebookLM and Photos.Perhaps the most notable integration here is with NotebookLM. Nano Banana is being used to drastically change up Video Overviews, offering up six new styles like watercolor and anime. It also now generates contextual illustrations based on sources and there's a new option for micro-videos called Briefs.For the uninitiated, Video Overviews is a neat little tool available to NotebookLM users that automatically generates explainer videos from documents. It can even whip up a narrated slideshow with visuals. The AI-heavy update starts rolling out to Pro users this week and to all users in "the upcoming weeks."Search integration offers new ways to make and edit images while using the official Google app. The company says folks can use a chat prompt to, say, ask the bot to create a stylized version of a pre-existing image. Additionally, photos can be snapped directly from the Lens tool and then edited via the AI. This is rolling out right now in English for US customers, with more countries and languages coming in the near future.We don't have any actual information as to what the Photos integration will look like, with Google simply saying it's bringing Nano Banana to the platform in "the weeks ahead." The company promises more details soon. Nano Banana is an image editor and Google Photos is a service for storing and organizing photos, so it'll likely involve editing these stored images in some way.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/googles-nano-banana-ai-image-editing-is-coming-to-search-notebooklm-and-photos-184111046.html?src=rss

California has become the latest state to age-gate app stores and operating systems. AB 1043 is one of several internet regulation bills that Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law on Monday, including ones related to social media warning labels, chatbots and deepfake pornography.The State Assembly passed AB 1043 with a 58-0 vote in September. The legislation received backing from notable tech companies such as Google, OpenAI, Meta, Snap and Pinterest. The companies claimed the bill offered a more balanced approach to age verification, with more privacy protection, than laws passed in other states.Unlike with legislation in Utah and Texas, children will still be able to download apps without their parents' consent. The law doesn't require people to upload photo IDs either. Instead, the idea is that a parent will enter their child's age while setting up a device for them - so it's more of an age gate than age verification. The operating system and/or app store will place the user into one of four age categories (under 13, 13-16, 16-18 or adult) and make that information available to app developers.Enacting AB 1043 means that California is joining the likes of Utah, Texas and Louisiana in mandating that app stores carry out age verification (the UK has a broad age verification law in place too). Apple has detailed how it plans to comply with the Texas law, which takes effect on January 1, 2026. The California legislation takes effect one year later.AB 56, another bill Newsom signed Monday, will force social media services to display warning labels that inform kids and teens about the risks of using such platforms. These messages will appear the first time the user opens an app each day, then after three hours of total use and once an hour thereafter. This law will take effect on January 1, 2027 as well.Elsewhere, California will require AI chatbots to have guardrails in place to prevent self-harm content from appearing and direct users who express suicidal ideation to crisis services. Platforms will need to inform the Department of Public Health about how they're addressing self-harm and to share details on how often they display crisis center prevention notifications.The legislation is coming into force after lawsuits were filed against OpenAI and Character AI in relation to teen suicides. OpenAI last month announced plans to automatically identify teen ChatGPT users and restrict their usage of the chatbot.In addition, SB 243 prohibits chatbots from being marketed as health care professionals. Chatbots will need to make it clear to users that they aren't interacting with a person when they're using such services, and instead they're receiving artificially generated responses. Chatbot providers will need to remind minors of this at least every three hours.Newsom also signed a bill concerning deepfake pornography into law. AB 621 includes steeper potential penalties for "third parties who knowingly facilitate or aid in the distribution of nonconsensual sexually explicit material." The legislation allows victims to seek up to $250,000 per "malicious violation" of the law.In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 or you can simply dial 988. Crisis Text Line can be reached by texting HOME to 741741 (US), CONNECT to 686868 (Canada) or SHOUT to 85258 (UK). Wikipedia maintains a list of crisis lines for people outside of those countries.

Best Buy is holding a sitewide sale on Microsoft Copilot+ PCs with steep discounts up to $700 off. This is fantastic timing, given that Microsoft ends official support for Windows 10 this week. If you're thinking about upgrading, now is likely the time. One cool deal here is for a souped-up version of the Microsoft Surface 7 laptop. This one ships with a Snapdragon X Plus processor, 32GB of RAM and 1TB of internal storage. It also includes a 13.8-inch touchscreen and a battery that gets 20 hours per charge. The laptop ships with Windows 11 Home, which should be relatively futureproof for the next several years. It costs just $1,100, which is a nice discount of $700. This model can be outfitted with even more bells and whistles. There's one with a more powerful Snapdragon X Elite processor and a 15-inch touchscreen. That one costs $1,500, which is a discount of $600. Other deals include the HP Omen gaming laptop with an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti for $2,000 instead of $2,380 and the MSI Codex gaming desktop with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 GPU for $1,460 instead of $1,600. There are plenty of other discounted laptops, desktops and accessories on the main sale page. Microsoft will officially end support of Windows 10 on October 14, but it may not be an immediate death knell. There is a way for users to get an additional 12 months of support via the company's Extended Security Updates plan. Many Windows 10 computers can also easily handle Windows 11, and a software update would be much cheaper than buying a new computer. Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/get-up-to-700-off-a-new-microsoft-copilot-pc-before-windows-10-support-ends-165735272.html?src=rss

SpaceX is gearing up for the 11th flight test of its Starship megarocket, which will launch from its Starbase in Texas as early as Monday. The launch window opens on October 13 at 7:15PM ET. You'll be able to watch live starting 30 minutes before liftoff on the SpaceX website and on X.As of the morning of October 13, SpaceX appears to be set for the next test flight - there's no word of any delays and the SpaceX X account said last night that weather was 80 percent favorable for a launch today.

I've been using Slack for like a decade and the platform's proprietary chatbot, Slackbot, has always been a bit underwhelming. It can deliver reminders and notifications and, well, that's about it. That could change in the near future, as the platform is testing a redesigned Slackbot that's chock full of AI.The new Slackbot is basically an AI chatbot like all the rest, but this one has been purpose-built to help with common work tasks. Folks can use natural language to converse with the bot and it can do stuff like whip up project plans, flag daily priorities and analyze reports. It can also help people find information when they only remember a few scant details. The company says it will "give every employee AI superpowers" so they can "drive productivity at AI speed."Slack/SalesforceTo that end, the new Slackbot integrates with tools like Google Drive, Salesforce and One Drive. It can provide "clear insights" by analyzing those other platforms. Slack also says that the chatbot will continue to grow and evolve, eventually being able to "take action on your behalf and build agents at your request, all with no code required."The Verge got a look at the new Slackbot in action and noted that it helped create a social media campaign using a brand's tone and organized a product's launch plan. The publication didn't indicate if the social media campaign and product launch plan were any good.The redesigned and AI-centric Slackbot is currently available as a beta to 70,000 users, but Slack has plans for a broad rollout by the end of the year. Companies will be able to turn off the feature, but all of us individual worker bees won't have that luxury.This is just the latest AI injection by Slack. After all, parent company Salesforce absolutely loves the technology. Slack recently added AI writing assistance to its Canvas document-sharing space and introduced AIgenerated channel recaps and thread summaries. It also recently came out that the company has been using people's chats to train its AI models by default, with companies being forced to specifically request an opt-out.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/slack-is-transforming-its-slackbot-into-a-personalized-ai-companion-154156367.html?src=rss

A Broadcom logo and a computer motherboard appear in this illustration taken August 25, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/IllustrationREUTERS / ReutersOpenAI is hungry for as much compute power as it can get its hands on, and the company has signed another deal with a chipmaker to help make that happen. This time around, it's teaming up with Broadcom to make custom chips and systems for use in both OpenAI's infrastructure and its partners' data centers.OpenAI is designing the "AI accelerators" and systems. Broadcom will start deploying those racks in the second half of next year, the companies said. The aim is to complete the rollout by the end of 2029. The two companies are said to have started working together 18 months ago.The deal is for 10 gigawatts of chips and it's worth "multiple billions of dollars," according to The Wall Street Journal. It was reported last month that OpenAI and Broadcom were making custom chips together. For what it's worth, the latter's CEO said recently that a new, unnamed client had put in an order worth $10 billion.The Broadcom deal follows agreements that OpenAI recently struck with both NVIDIA and AMD. NVIDIA is investing $100 billion into OpenAI and will provide it with 10 gigawatts of AI infrastructure. The deal with AMD is for six gigawatts of compute power. OpenAI is said to be paying AMD tens of billions of dollars under that agreement and it could ultimately take up to a 10 percent stake in the company. As with the Broadcom rollout, both the NVIDIA and AMD deployments are expected to start in the second half of 2026. OpenAI also inked a deal with Oracle in July for 4.5 gigawatts in data center capacity as part of its Stargate Project.According to recent reports, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees that he wanted the company to build out 250 gigawatts of compute power over the next eight years, significantly up from the 2GW it's expected to have by the end of this year. (For context, 250GW is about a fifth of the energy generation capacity of the entire US, which sits at around 1,200GW.)As things stand, it would likely cost around $10 trillion to buy that much capacity. Altman said OpenAI would have to develop new financing tools to make that happen, but he hasn't elaborated much on what those might look like. Even its current deals have OpenAI on the hook for hundreds of billions of dollars.While the likes of NVIDIA and Microsoft have invested heavily into OpenAI, there isn't a backer on the planet that can plow $10 trillion into the company. As things stand, OpenAI is very, very far away from making up the difference in revenue too. It's reportedly expecting to make $13 billion in revenue this year.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-is-making-its-own-ai-chips-with-broadcoms-help-142242231.html?src=rss

Those on a tight budget and those who prefer open-ear AirPods will want to check out the latest discount on the AirPods 4. Apple's entry-level wireless earbuds are down to $89 even now after October Prime Day has come and gone. That's 30 percent off their normal rate and the lowest we've seen them. When Apple updated its standard AirPods in 2024, it released two models: one with active noise cancellation (ANC) and one without. We consider the non-ANC models to be the best budget AirPods you can get, so they're an even better buy at this sale price. The ANC versions are also discounted at the moment, so you can pick them up for $119 instead of the usual $180. The AirPods' H2 chip brings a bunch of Pro-adjacent features to the standard model. That list includes Adaptive Audio, Conversation Awareness, Transparency, Personalized Spatial Audio and wireless charging. For calls, it supports Voice Isolation, which helps filter out background noise and make it easier for you to be heard. And if that call is via FaceTime, it supports Apple's 48kHz "cinema-quality" audio. Sound is improved over the AirPods 3. "There's more low-end tone than the previous model right out of the gate, and the punchier treble opens the sound stage so it's wider and more immersive," Engadget's Billy Steele wrote. "The improved frequency response is on full display with Dolby Atmos content (movies, music, and TV), but the AirPods 4 are also more sonically adept with non-spatial tunes and video." You can expect around five hours of battery life on a single charge. With the ANC model, that estimate drops to around four hours with the marquee feature activated. With either version, you can drop them in the charging case to extend their total time to around 30 hours. And hey, it's good to give your ears a rest now and then anyway. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/airpods-4-earbuds-drop-to-an-all-time-low-price-130033554.html?src=rss

Even if you missed Prime Day last week, you can still save on some of our favorite tech today. That, believe it or not, includes some Apple devices. One of the best deals still lingering on the internet is on the iPad A16, which is down to a record low of $279. This tablet made our list of the best iPads and we particularly recommend it for the budget-conscious. It may lack some of the bells and whistles of its more expensive cousins, but it still gets the job done. It's fast enough for most common tasks and the battery life is solid, at 10 hours per charge. It also ships with 6GB of RAM, which is a decent enough metric. The tablet integrates with Wi-Fi 6 and features a USB-C connector, along with a pair of 12MP cameras. There's also a Touch ID sensor, which can be used to unlock the device and to make payments. This is the most basic tablet in Apple's lineup, so it lacks some features. It doesn't integrate with the Apple Pencil Pro or the Magic Keyboard. The display is also not quite as gorgeous as the iPad Air or Pro, but it's still a Liquid Retina panel.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/apples-entry-level-ipad-is-down-to-a-record-low-price-082743843.html?src=rss

Smart LED light bulbs are one of the easiest ways to get into the IoT space. These smart lighting solutions let you control your home's illumination from your phone and other connected devices, and in addition to that practicality, they also inject some fun into your space. Color-changing bulbs have a plethora of RGB options for you to customize the lighting mood for your next movie night, date night or game day, or you can opt for cozy warm white light when you need to unwind at the end of a long day.

We can finally answer the question of who wins in a fight between prime Aang and prime Korra. Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game, which is a working title, was announced at New York Comic Con and already has a release date of summer 2026. The developer, Gameplay Group International, revealed a trailer with some "pre-alpha footage" that resembles Street Fighter but with our favorite characters from the Avatar franchise.According to the Steam page, the game will offer 12 characters at launch and introduce more on a seasonal basis. While the gameplay still looks like a rough draft, the developer has already detailed a unique fighting system, which includes a "flow system" and support characters that enable special moves. Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game will also have the "energy of classic fighting games" and was made with a focus on "fluidity, responsiveness, and online integrity." Along with combo trials and a gallery mode, the game will have crossplay and be available on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X and S, Nintendo Switch 2 and Steam.For those not passionate about fighting games,the upcoming release will also feature some original content through its single-player campaign. Alternatively, you can wait for Paramount's "AAA RPG" based on the cartoon with no concrete release date. As for Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game, there's a lot of promise here with the franchise's diverse cast of characters and the developer's experience with other fighting games. At the very least, it's not the same developer that gave us the very forgettable Avatar: The Last Airbender - Quest for Balance game.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/an-avatar-fighting-game-is-coming-out-in-summer-2026-191008728.html?src=rss

Just about a month after being accused of using pirated books to train its AI, Apple is facing another similar proposed class action lawsuit. As first reported by Bloomberg Law, two neuroscience professors from SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University in Brooklyn, NY, claimed that Apple used their "registered works without authorization." The neuroscientists, Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen Macknik, said Apple trained its AI models using "shadow libraries" and "web-crawling software" that provide access to pirated, copyrighted books, including two of their own.In the previous class action lawsuit, a separate pair of authors also alleged that Apple committed copyright infringement when using published works to train Apple Intelligence models without consent. Apple isn't the only tech giant facing copyright lawsuits related to its AI, as OpenAI is in a similar situation after being sued by The New York Times for similar accusations. While these AI models are relatively new, there's already a case that may have set some precedent. Earlier this year, Anthropic settled a class action lawsuit by agreeing to pay $1.5 billion to 500,000 authors involved in the case, which revolved around copyright claims.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/apple-hit-with-another-class-action-lawsuit-for-alleged-copyright-infringement-175242922.html?src=rss