The Verge

Samsung’s new SmartThings Station is a smart home hub, a wireless charger, and a SmartThings Find device. | Photo by Owen Grove / The Verge A little over three years after getting out of the smart home hardware game, Samsung is back with a new smart home hub. And this time, Samsung has figured out a way to make you actually want to put a device hub in your home: by building it into a wireless charging pad.The SmartThings Station is a chunky charging puck that supports Matter and Thread to connect devices like TVs, speakers, thermostats, lighting, and plugs to SmartThings. It also works with the new smart home standard Matter to onboard devices to any Matter platform.And, of course, it can charge your gadgets. The Station doubles as a 15W fast wireless charging pad for Galaxy smartphones and earbuds (it will charge other phones, just not as fast). I am definitely here for... Continue reading…

Photo by Massimo Bettiol/Getty Images Ken Block, who died tragically in a snowmobile accident this week, was an entrepreneur, a racer, and a social media god. But at his core, he was always an enthusiast. We were all fans. Continue reading…

Guess which one is the Chromebook. | Photo by Owen Grove / The Verge For years, the HP Elite Dragonfly has been one of the most sleek, luxurious, and exorbitantly expensive business laptops you can buy. The new Dragonfly Pro is HP’s attempt to market those models to a broader, consumer-focused, and more price-conscious audience. There’s a Windows-based Dragonfly Pro, and there’s a Dragonfly Pro Chromebook, and while we don’t know the pricing yet, the hope is that they will be cheaper than their business counterparts.I spent a few minutes with the Dragonfly Pro Chromebook and the Dragonfly Pro, and they seem nice. They’re well-built and pretty-looking (and I’d be shocked if they weren’t, coming from HP). They come in black and white options. But the first thing you’ll probably notice is that the... Continue reading…

TCL’s NXTWear V headset concept is just one way the company hopes to put screens on your face. | Image: TCL TCL’s displays are in TVs, smartphones, and maybe in the near future, the metaverse, too. At least, the company wants to make the screen that gets you there. At CES 2023, the company is announcing its latest experiments with wearable displays, including a VR headset and mixed reality glasses. Plus, its personal display glasses, which have only been available in limited markets, are now heading for the US. It’s kind of a “cover-all-your-bases” strategy for whatever the future of display technology looks like.The company’s NXTWear S glasses are the latest version of its wearable display — kind of like a TV contained in a pair of (sort of) ordinary-looking glasses. They aren’t AR or VR glasses; they plug into a device like your phone or... Continue reading…

Image: TCL TCL is overhauling its TV strategy for 2023 by ditching the company’s long-running 6-Series, 5-Series, and 4-Series branding in favor of two new lines: higher-end sets will be part of the Q-Series, while more value-focused TVs will fall under the S-Series. Within the two segments are six different models in all.Let’s cover the best first, shall we? With its flagship QM8, TCL is promising double the peak brightness of its best Mini LED TVs from 2022 — and those were already fairly impressive in their own right. Set to come in screen sizes between 65 inches and 98 inches, the largest QN8 packs in more than 2,300 dimming zones. TCL claims that’s the most of any 4K Mini LED TV on the market — and even more than 8K models. The QM8 features... Continue reading…

It’s on the fancier ProArt Studiobook, too. | Photo by Owen Grove / The Verge For some companies that sell gaming and creator-oriented laptops, glasses-free 3D has become a bit of a dream. Acer first tried it back in 2021. Its SpatialLabs technology, which uses a combination of a stereo camera, optical lens, and real-time rendering technology to create decently realistic 3D images, has since made its way to a number of laptops, including the Predator Helios 300 gaming rig.This year, it’s Asus’ turn. The company has announced Spatial Vision, a “glasses-free (autostereoscopic) 3D OLED technology.” The screens are 3D, 3.2K, OLED, and 120Hz. In a similar manner to Acer’s tech, machines that support Spatial Vision will use a combination of a lenticular lens and advanced eye-tracking camera technology. They render... Continue reading…

If you want a hockey puck of a computer to easily deploy on a desk or behind a monitor, you’ll find plenty on sale, from the Mac Mini to Intel’s bare-bones NUC. But Asus is adding a “why didn’t anyone think of that?” feature to its new Chromebox 5 this year: a built-in 15W wireless charger for your phone and / or earbud case.Okay, technically, someone did think of that before: you could buy an aftermarket wireless charging “lid” for some Intel NUCs, and Intel even added the feature itself to a few NUCs. But it’s rare, and this is the first time I’ve seen it on a Chromebox. Last generation, Asus simply advertised that its Chromebox 4 could deliver USB-PD power to a phone with a cable, which, well, duh. Image: Asus ... Continue reading…

It’s on the fancier ProArt Studiobook, too. | Photo by Owen Grove / The Verge For some companies that sell gaming and creator-oriented laptops, glasses-free 3D has become a bit of a dream. Acer first tried it back in 2021. Its SpatialLabs technology, which uses a combination of a stereo camera, optical lens, and real-time rendering technology to create decently realistic 3D images, has since made its way to a number of laptops, including the Predator Helios 300 gaming rig.This year, it’s Asus’ turn. The company has announced Spatial Vision, a “glasses-free (autostereoscopic) 3D OLED technology.” The screens are 3D, 3.2K, OLED, and 120Hz. In a similar manner to Acer’s tech, machines that support Spatial Vision will use a combination of a lenticular lens and advanced eye-tracking camera technology. They render... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Disney Plus has been streaming movies in a taller-than-usual “IMAX Enhanced” format for more than a year now, and now it will roll out a new wrinkle for the home theater certification, with IMAX signature sound by DTS. Set to roll out at some point this year, the format says its intent is “preserving the full dynamic range of the original mix.”There aren’t a lot of specifics about exactly what will be different, but audio and surround sound specialist DTS (and its parent company Xperi, which also owns other brands like TiVo) says its IMAX Enhanced label establishes a set of qualifiers ensuring viewers will get the best audio and video experience.Unlike the extra-tall 1.90:1 aspect ratio IMAX Enhanced Disney Plus titles (mostly Marvel... Continue reading…

Photo by Melissa Sue Gerrits / Getty Images I hope you all had a relaxing holiday break. My body is not ready to be back at work, but Hot Pod won’t write itself. For our first issue of the year, Donald Trump Jr. signs with Rumble, PodcastOne is becoming a separate public company, and De La Soul is finally coming to streaming platforms.Someone gave Donald Trump Jr. a podcast dealOur first podcast talent deal of the year arrived early, and it’s a gross one! Axios reported that Rumble, the right-wing alternative to YouTube, has signed Donald Trump Jr. to a multiyear podcast deal. His new show, Triggered with Don Jr., will air live on Rumble twice a week starting January 23rd.It is not a complete shot in the dark for Rumble, where the eldest Trump spawn already has more than 1... Continue reading…

One of the coolest parts of the Cyborg 15 will remain out of sight while you use it — a shame. | Image: MSI There’s something wrong with the seemingly hundreds of laptops that have been birthed so far during CES 2023: almost none of them are translucent. Using a see-through design is proven [no citations found] to make more people want to buy a product because, for one, it looks cool, and two, the company must be pretty confident in its engineering handiwork to want to show it off like that.The thing is, if a company uses translucent plastic on your gadget, it’s got to go for it 100 percent or go home. And that’s where MSI goes wrong.At CES 2023, the company is announcing the Cyborg 15, a gaming laptop that uses see-through plastic to show off its internals. Sadly, only the bottom of the laptop (and the trim around its top lid) is... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Vimeo is doing another round of layoffs, this time affecting 11 percent of the company, CEO Anjali Sud announced in a letter posted online.Citing “a further deterioration in economic conditions,” Sud told Vimeo staff that nearly every department and region of the company will see cuts. The majority of layoffs will occur in large departments like sales and research and development.“We are entering 2023 with a more focused strategy to simplify Vimeo, and ultimately, our team size and composition needs to reflect that focus,” Sud wrote. “This reduction enables us to achieve our growth and profitability goals in a way that is far less dependent on the broader market, putting us in full control of our destiny.”This round of job cuts... Continue reading…

The Pixel Buds Pro. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The Google Pixel’s January update is here, and it adds a new spatial audio feature for the Pixel 6, 6 Pro, 7, and 7 Pro phones. Android researcher Mishaal Rahman has verified that a toggle for the feature is appearing in the settings menu of the Pixel 6 Pro with the stable update, which is rolling out now to Pixel devices.According to Google’s support page for the feature, it’s able to take audio from apps that offer 5.1 surround sound audio and make it sound like it’s coming from in front and behind you, as though you’re surrounded by speakers in the real world. Google notes that it should work with “any connected headset.” That even includes wired headphones, according to a Google blog post from last year.

The A13 5G comes with a big 6.6-inch 1080p display, an upgraded selfie camera, and a 50-megapixel rear camera. | Image: Samsung Samsung is starting off 2023 with a budget phone refresh, making some smart upgrades with the Galaxy A14 5G — at least on paper. The A14 will cost $199, which is $50 lower than the A13 5G’s list price. Compared to its predecessor, it comes with a higher-res display and selfie cam while leaving many other core specs alone. Samsung will also offer up to four years of security updates and two OS version upgrades, which is a significant step up from the two or three years of security updates that are much more common at this price.The A14 5G has a MediaTek 700 chipset and 4GB of RAM, just like the A13. That’s fine — the A13 delivered good performance with that combination, so Samsung isn’t trying to fix something that wasn’t broken. There’s... Continue reading…

It’s a black camera, but trust me when I say it could be blacker. And thankfully Panasonic will soon do something about that. | Image: Panasonic Panasonic’s new cameras are finally making the leap to a new autofocus system, potentially putting them in line with the latest offerings from Sony, Canon, and Nikon. At CES, the company is announcing the Lumix S5II and its stealthy, blacked-out cousin, the S5IIx — a duo of 24-megapixel full-frame mirrorless hybrid cameras for both stills and video, due out in January for $1,999 and May for $2,199, respectively. Also announced alongside them is a $799 14-28mm f/4-5.6 S Macro lens, arriving in February.Unsurprisingly for Panasonic cameras, the S5II pair have a lot of video features, like 6K recording with real-time LUTs. This year, they ditch the dated and clunky contrast-detect autofocus for a new hybrid phase-detect system Panasonic... Continue reading…

You can save $40 on the noise-canceling Beats Fit Pro right now. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The new year has arrived, which means many of us are looking to shed a few holiday pounds and embark on our annual — though often short-lived — fitness resolutions. Thankfully, if you need a good pair of wireless earbuds to keep you motivated at the gym, the Beats Fit Pro have returned to their all-time low of around $159.99 ($40 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target.The Beats Fit Pro are a great set of earbuds for working out (especially if you’re a runner) and can help you stay focused while at the gym thanks to their built-in wing tips, excellent noise cancellation, and useful transparency mode that allows ambient sounds in when needed. The fitness-focused buds offer a host of Apple-centric features, too, making them our go-to earbuds... Continue reading…

The new Roborock S8 vacuums now come with two roller brushes. | Image: Roborock Roborock, arguably Roomba’s biggest competitor in the world of robot vacuum cleaners, launched a new line of flagship robot vacuums at CES this week. The S8 Series starts at $750, and its big new feature is straight out of Roomba’s playbook: dual roller brushes.While brushes may not sound as impressive as lidar mapping, AI-obstacle avoidance, or automatic emptying docks, a big problem with most robot vacuums is they have one small brush trying to pick up all the dirt. Often, this is a bristle brush that quickly gets tangled up with hair.In my experience testing robot vacuums, Roomba’s superior cleaning power is largely down to its dual rubber roller brush system that rotates in opposite directions to get up more grime and is less... Continue reading…

The Drop BMR1 Nearfield Monitors are apparently inspired by the mechanical keyboard community, allowing for customization and flexibility. | Image: Drop Drop has announced the new Drop BMR1 Nearfield Monitors today at CES 2023, the company’s first desktop speakers that promise to provide “high-quality” and “big sound” from an affordable and compact package. They support Bluetooth 5.0, include a standard 3.5mm headphone jack and aux-in line, and can be connected to an external subwoofer for additional bass and fuller audio. They’re also designed for both horizontal and vertical orientation for greater flexibility with placement.Drop has previously collaborated with reputable brands like EPOS and Sennheiser to release other audio products like headphones and gaming headsets, but the community-driven gadget manufacturer is probably best known for its range of mechanical keyboards. “We... Continue reading…

The JBL Quantum 910P (left) and 910X (right) are identical, but the 910X offers broader platform compatibility. | Image: JBL JBL has launched a range of new Quantum gaming headsets for PS5 and the latest Xbox consoles. The most interesting duo includes the 910P and 910X (two different colors but the same model), its flagship wireless models that will cost $299.95 when they launch in March. They offer active noise cancellation and the ability to pair with a phone to take calls while you game, but head-tracking spatial audio is their standout feature.Spatial audio is a topic that we’ve covered a lot because it’s cool, and it’s not difficult or expensive to find headphones to experience it for yourself. Heck, just pair a relatively new set of AirPods with an iPhone or an Apple TV and there should be some content for you to check out, complete with head tracking.... Continue reading…

An OLED screen gives you several controls. | Image: HP HP has joined the list of companies making wireless earbuds and then sticking a screen on the charging case, with its announcement of the Voyager Free 60 Plus. Oddly, the company’s marketing the earbuds directly toward enterprise users rather than gadget heads, but we’ll get back to that in a bit. Let’s talk about that screen first.It’s actually optional — the regular Voyager Free 60s come with a plain old charging case, which HP says will add 10 hours of talk time. The case for the Plus model, however, has an OLED touchscreen that lets you control music playback, volume, and settings, see your battery status, and accept or reject calls. Image: HP The touchscreen lets you accept or deny incoming calls as well as... Continue reading…

JBL’s Tour Pro 2. | Product images: JBL JBL recently announced a set of wireless earbuds with a touchscreen on the charging case that let you control your music — but at the time, they were only headed to Europe. Now, at CES, JBL has announced plans to bring the earbuds to the US. JBL’s Tour Pro 2 headphones will launch stateside sometime this spring, and you’ll be able to pick them up for $249.95, or about the same price as Apple’s AirPods Pro.At 1.45 inches, the LED touchscreen on the Tour Pro 2 case won’t be able to show you much. For comparison, it’s even tinier than the 1.9-inch cover screen on Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 4. But the screen could be a useful way to do simple tasks like skipping a song, flipping on ANC, or glancing at your notifications if your phone isn’t... Continue reading…

Image: Nvidia Nvidia has turned its AI upscaling technology on a new target: blurry web video. Announced this week during its CES 2023 presentation, RTX Video Super Resolution is designed to upscale video watched through the Chrome or Edge browsers on a PC to the equivalent of 4K. The catch is that you’ll need a relatively modern Nvidia GPU to benefit from the feature, with only its most recent 30 and 40-series GPUs listed as getting support when it releases next month.In practice, a video demonstration of the tech at work on Apex Legends footage shows edges being sharpened, and video artifacts reduced. Nvidia’s demo shows RTX Video Super Resolution at work on a YouTube video, but its blog post notes that should work on “any video watched in a... Continue reading…

Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is reportedly planning to launch a version of Bing that uses ChatGPT to answer search queries. The Information reports that Microsoft hopes to launch the new feature before the end of March in a bid to make Bing more competitive with Google.By using the technology behind ChatGPT — which is built by AI company OpenAI — Bing could provide more humanlike answers to questions instead of just links to information. Both Google and Bing already surface relevant information from links at the top of many search queries, but Google’s knowledge panels are particularly widespread when it comes to searching for information about people, places, organizations, and things.Microsoft’s use of ChatGPT-like functionality could help Bing rival... Continue reading…

Image: Chrysler By 2028, iconic American automotive brand Chrysler says it will be an electric-only company. As such, it needs an interior that compliments and accentuates this shift to an emission-free future. Today, Chrysler unveiled a “demonstrator” cockpit designed to showcase a host of new technologies that the automaker’s future EV owners can expect to have at their fingertips.Hopefully those future owners hate physical buttons because, if these images are any indication, there won’t be any. There will be plenty of screens, though.The demonstrator is meant to bring together a host of Stellantis-branded softwareThe demonstrator is meant to bring together a host of Stellantis-branded software, including the STLA Brain operating system, the STLA... Continue reading…

The Matter-enabled SwitchBot Hub 2 is also a temperature and humidity sensor. | Image: SwitchBot The smart home company SwitchBot, which makes tiny robots that can do things for you like press switches, turn locks, and open curtains, is introducing a new Matter-enabled hub. The $69 SwitchBot Hub 2 arrives in March and will work with all existing and new SwitchBot Bluetooth devices and enable those devices that are supported by the new smart home standard to work with Matter.A major upgrade to the existing Switch Bot Hub Mini, the new hub looks like a combination of the Mini and Switchbot’s Meter Plus temperature sensor. It has the same built-in thermo-hygrometer to measure temperature and humidity, plus a large LED display. It’s powered by AC and connects to Wi-Fi. Image: SwitchBot A rendering of the new... Continue reading…

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images The world’s biggest tech show is here once again, which means there are gadgets in the air. Continue reading…

The S95C will be released later this year in three screen sizes. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Last year’s S95B QD-OLED (quantum dot) TVs from Samsung were an exciting shakeup for the consumer market and gave LG and Sony some long overdue competition. But the S95B series was limited to just 55-inch and 65-inch models — because those are the only TV sizes that Samsung Display manufactured QD-OLED panels for. It’s brand new technology, after all.But only a year later, we’re going bigger. Samsung’s just-announced S95C QD-OLED TV will add a larger 77-inch model in addition to the previous sizes. Every TV maker claims that consumers are increasingly opting for larger and larger sets, so this was the obvious thing to do as Samsung builds out its OLED reputation.The S95B was a superb TV, and the QD-OLED panel marked a legitimate... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Last year, Samsung radically shook up the TV market with the introduction of its first OLED model in many years. And it used a new QD-OLED (quantum dot) panel that produces superior color brightness compared to popular OLED sets from LG.2023 is going to be decidedly low key by comparison. Instead of introducing yet another flashy new TV to its portfolio, Samsung is focused on improving everything down the line. And most of the refinements in this year’s Neo QLED (Mini LED in Samsung parlance), QLED (standard LCD sets), and OLED TVs are centered around AI and enhanced picture processing. Things like a greater, more three-dimensional sense of depth, improved upscaling, and more. The hardware features you’d expect on premium models,... Continue reading…

Apple’s MagSafe puck, wirelessly charging an iPhone 12 Pro | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge It’s safe to say that Apple’s MagSafe magnetic charging pucks for iPhone have not created the amazing snap-on accessory ecosystem we’d hoped. Instead of freely allowing manufacturers to create gadgets that power and/or communicate with an iPhone, the company chose its traditional tight licensing stranglehold. But this time, manufacturers realized they didn’t need to play Apple’s game, because the two main components of MagSafe — a Qi wireless charging coil and an array of magnets — were freely available. The result: a wide array of “MagSafe-compatible” accessories of varying quality.But now, Apple’s trying something different. With the blessing of competitors, Apple is about to change the Qi wireless standard itself. It’s contributing... Continue reading…

The Brow Magic is a type of “brow printer” with an AR component. | Image: L’Oreal L’Oréal is no slouch when it comes to gadgets. Like Dyson, L’Oréal has been pushing the game in beauty tech for the past few years, announcing neat gizmos like wearable UV and pH sensors. This year is no different. For CES 2023, the company is announcing two makeup gadgets: Brow Magic, which uses AR to create and draw your perfect brow, and HAPTA, an accessible lipstick applicator prototype.Brow Magic was developed with Prinker, which makes a temporary tattoo printer. Brow Magic works similarly. It’s got 2,400 tiny nozzles that can print up to 1,200 dots per inch. And when you think about it as a tattoo printer, it makes sense given popular brow procedures like microblading and microshading are also semipermanent tattoos. The ultimate... Continue reading…

The U-Scan is a noninvasive urinalysis test that you stick in your toilet. | Image: Withings Withings is generally known for its sleek smartwatches, but it also shows up at CES each year with ambitious health gadgets. Last year, it was a smart scale that could also take EKGs and segmented body composition readings. This year, it’s the U-Scan, an at-home, hands-free “urine lab” that you stick in your toilet.Yes, you read that correctly.The U-Scan consists of two parts: a reader and a replaceable cartridge. The reader itself is the part you pee on, while the cartridge is inside. It has a thermal sensor to differentiate between pee and toilet water as well as low-energy radars to detect who is urinating by identifying the movement and distance of your individual urine stream. In other words, the U-Scan only works with one person... Continue reading…

An assembly line of Model Y vehicles being built at the Texas Gigafactory. | Photo by Loren Grush / The Verge If you were waiting until after New Year to pick up a Tesla Model Y in hopes it’d qualify you for the new federal tax credit, you might be in for a disappointment. The IRS released a 2023 list of vehicles that qualify for the new $7,500 incentive, and while Tesla’s popular hatchback is on it, the most common five-seater versions won’t be eligible.According to federal specifications, the five-seater Model Y Long Range isn’t considered a “non-passenger automobile,” the category under which SUVs officially fall. They also don’t fall under the IRS’s main SUV qualifier, which is that the gross vehicle weight must be between 6,000 and 14,000 pounds. The dual-motor Model Y has a curb mass of about 4,403 pounds.Without SUV status, the Model... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Three federal financial agencies put out a joint statement on Tuesday warning banks about the “key risks for banks associated with crypto-assets and the crypto-asset sector.” The statement explains that while banks aren’t wholesale banned or discouraged from providing services to crypto firms, the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency believe that issuing or holding cryptocurrency is “highly likely to be inconsistent with safe and sound banking practices.”The regulators say they’re still figuring out how to deal with banks and crypto, working on a case-by-case basis, and that they’re being “careful and cautious.”

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft’s cutting off Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 from security updates and technical support on January 10th. That’s just one week from today and also marks the launch of Microsoft Edge 109 — the last version to support the aged operating systems.But Edge isn’t the only major browser ditching Windows 7 and 8.1. In October, Google announced that Chrome will end support for Windows 7 and 8.1 on February 7th. Although both browsers will continue to work on these devices, they won’t receive any critical security updates or new features. Support for WebView2, the tool that allows developers to embed web-based content into their apps, is going away on January 10th, too.Next week’s deadline leaves little time for the owners of machines still... Continue reading…

Photo by Pete Marovich-Pool / Getty Images President Joe Biden renominated Gigi Sohn Tuesday to serve on the Federal Communications Commission, once again throwing his support behind the embattled pick whose confirmation has stalled for more than a year.Sohn, a public interest advocate and former FCC counselor, was first nominated to the post in October 2021. Since then, she’s struggled to gain the necessary support of moderate Democrats and has faced an intense opposition campaign staged by Republicans and telecom industry groups. But last November’s Democratic Senate midterm wins could be a boon for Sohn’s nomination, adding an additional Democratic senator into the mix and possibly securing her confirmation.Before the midterms, Democrats held a slim 50-50 majority in the... Continue reading…