The Verge

AMD is going for a full overhaul of its laptop hardware at CES 2022, with a full slate of new discrete GPUs for laptops: a new line of RX 6000S models designed for beefing up graphics on thin-and-light gaming laptops and an expanded line of RX 6000M GPUs for more traditional gaming laptops.The RX 6000S series of chips is kicking off with three new designs: the RX 6800S, the RX 6700S, and the RX 6600S. AMD says that the new GPUs will enable powerful gaming laptops that are 20 percent thinner and under 4.5 pounds in weight, with a goal of maximizing power efficiency. The 6000M series is getting a pair of new entry-level chips — the RX 6500M and RX 6300M — and souped-up versions of some of its existing models, including the... Continue reading…

Image by Lenovo Lenovo has a new smart clock, and unlike its prior models, the updated Smart Clock Essential comes with Alexa instead of Google Assistant — basically making it an Echo Dot turned smart clock. Most of the major changes to the clock have to do with Lenovo passing the baton to Alexa, but there are still some smaller changes worth noting as well.You can still set an alarm, timer, and reminders, as well as control your smart home with the device; any product that’s compatible with Alexa will also work with the Smart Clock Essential. Additionally, you can stream audio from Amazon Music and other streaming platforms, which the smart clock plays from its 3W speaker, a spec that remains unchanged from the previous model.The fabric case that... Continue reading…

Image: Sony Sony is setting some pretty grand expectations with its 2022 TV lineup — led by the introduction of the world’s first consumer QD-OLED TV. The company’s current and well-regarded OLED sets use panels from LG Display that are tuned with Sony’s own processing. But the new flagship Bravia XR A95K TV will include a QD-OLED (quantum dot organic light emitting diode) panel manufactured by none other than Samsung Display. It’ll come in 65-inch and 55-inch sizes, with both coming in at 4K resolution.It was rumored that Samsung Electronics might announce a QD-OLED 4K TV at CES 2022, but that hasn’t panned out so far. So it’s Sony that gets the prime spotlight instead. Samsung Display has been developing QD-OLED for a number of years, and the... Continue reading…

Image: Sony Here’s the so-called “weird Sony” gadget for CES 2022: the Bravia Cam is a new video camera that will come bundled with the company’s very fanciest TVs (like the new QD-OLED A95K) and sold as an optional add-on for the rest of the lineup. You’ll be able to make video calls with it, but Sony is cramming in way more functionality than the simple stuff. The question is really whether any of the Bravia Cam’s many tricks will actually work worth a damn in the real world.First, and this is the part I’m instinctively most wary of, the Bravia Cam will allow you to control 2022 Sony TVs with gesture controls from the couch. Want to power your TV off with a close of your fist? Have at it. Or you can pause your content or adjust the volume by... Continue reading…

Image: Sony Sony makes arguably the best OLED TVs that you can buy. They outperform LG’s own OLED sets in picture quality despite the fact that both companies use very similar panels from LG Display. That’s because Sony applies its own image processing to everything that you see on-screen. Even when the company adopts a new display technology, it leans on decades’ worth of TV hardware expertise to fine-tune everything.And now that Sony’s got a good handle on OLED, it’s time for a new challenge: Mini LED. As part of its 2022 TV lineup, which also features one of the world’s very first QD-OLED TVs, Sony is introducing its first Mini LED LCD TVs. The Z9K series will offer 8K resolution in 75- and 85-inch screen sizes, while the X95K sticks to 4K with... Continue reading…

Image: TCL Last year, TCL announced an “XL” TV series that aimed to offer very big 85-inch displays for prices below what you’d pay for a similarly enormous set from, say, Samsung or LG. And in the first week of 2022, the XL lineup is going even larger. Today TCL is introducing a new 98-inch 4K QLED TV that’s available for purchase immediately. The 98R754 is a Google TV-based set that offers features like 4K gaming at 120Hz.As for the price, TCL is only saying that the latest XL model “starts at under $8,000.” So, that probably translates to $7,999. Even at that asking price, TCL claims the 98-inch QLED is “accessible” and honors the company’s “commitment to deliver powerful picture performance and big-screen immersion at an accessible price... Continue reading…

“Amber hunters” on a quest for a Jurassic Park-style discovery of dinosaur remains sift through mounds of the precious resin in Myanmar — a lucrative trade that captivates palaeontologists but also fuels a decades-long conflict in the far north. | Photo credit should read LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA/AFP via Getty Images Colonialism is so entangled in earth sciences that its ugly legacy still influences research today. Scientists are struggling to undo the damage that colonization has had on their fields, which have been dominated mostly by white men from wealthy nations over the years.The latest evidence is a study published last week that finds that 97 percent of fossil data in a major, global database comes from authors based in North America and Western Europe— indicating that scientists from western nations hold a global “monopoly over palaeontological knowledge production.” The authors say it’s a symptom of researchers from those nations “parachuting” into other countries and taking what they find away with them.Once researchers return to their... Continue reading…

Google’s latest Nest Hub is on sale today for just $59.99, its second-best price to date. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge If you were secretly hoping for a smart home display for Christmas but didn’t receive one, today you can treat yourself to one of the best for almost half its usual price. Right now, you can grab Google’s second-gen Nest Hub — our pick for one of the best smart displays — for its second-best price to date at B&H Photo, Best Buy, and Adorama. Typically $99.99, it’s currently on sale for $59.99, which is only $10 shy of its all-time low during Black Friday. As mentioned in our review, Google’s small second-gen smart display remains an excellent digital photo frame for displaying images from Google Photos, and it offers automatic and reliable sleep-tracking features. It’s also a better speaker than its predecessor and grants you access to... Continue reading…

TCL’s new laptop, the TCL Book 14 Go. | Image: TCL TCL, which is perhaps best known for its lower-cost TVs, smartphones, and tablets, is expanding into laptops with the TCL Book 14 Go. The company is also targeting an affordable cost with this new laptop, pricing it at $349 — though that budget price means it doesn’t have the most impressive specs.The new Windows 11 laptop has a 14.1-inch display with a 1366 x 768 resolution and a 16:9 aspect ratio, and TCL is promising its 40Wh battery will last for 10 to 12 hours. It’s an ARM-based laptop with a Snapdragon 7c CPU, and it also has an Adreno 618 GPU. And the laptop can connect to LTE networks, so you can get on the internet while away from a Wi-Fi connection. It only has 128GB of onboard storage, though you can expand that with an SD... Continue reading…

The TCL Nxtpaper 10S tablet reduces blue light by 10 percent. | Image by TCL TCL introduced a lineup of new tablets at CES this year, which includes its latest iteration of the NxtPaper and budget-friendly Tab series.The NxtPaper 10S offers a similar “paper-like” display and a focus on combatting eye strain as its eight-inch predecessor. But this isn’t electronic paper. It’s a 10.1-inch IPS display that TCL says reduces blue light by 50 percent and has an anti-glare finish. Unlike the previously released NxtPaper tablet, the 10S comes with a proprietary T Pen to jot down notes and boasts a bigger 8,000mAh battery. The NxtPaper 10S is set to go on sale for $249 in Europe and China next month. Image: TCL The budget-friendly TCL Tab 8 comes with 4G LTE connectivity. TCL’s Tab 8 4G is... Continue reading…

TCL will debut a total of eight new phones globally in 2022, but it’s kicking the year off by introducing two models coming exclusively to the US: the TCL 30 XE 5G and TCL 30 V 5G. The 30 XE 5G offers a 6.52-inch 90Hz display and will be sold initially at T-Mobile with other carrier availability later in the year. The 30 V 5G will be exclusive to Verizon, with sub-6GHz and mmWave 5G connectivity. With these new devices, TCL looks to be playing to its strengths in the budget market.The TCL 30 V 5G boasts a slightly bigger 6.67-inch 1080p display with a standard 60Hz refresh rate. It uses a Snapdragon 480 5G chipset with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The 30 V includes a 50-megapixel main rear camera and a 5-megapixel ultrawide,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Hello and welcome to 2022. It remains winter, y’all. I haven’t seen the sun in seemingly weeks, but we’re pushing through, surviving on podcast news for warmth and cheeriness.Now, let’s get to the news. There’s not a ton to discuss today, but I do have a new report that I’m excited to share with you all. Let’s start there.EXCLUSIVE: Podcast ads gone wrongThis morning, I published a story on The Verge about the ongoing push to make programmatic advertising work in podcasting and the struggles podcasters are already experiencing. The idea behind the transition is to allow advertisers to easily and automatically bid on podcast ad inventory and have those ads targeted against specific audiences. This is why we’ve seen podcast platforms... Continue reading…

NxtWear Air is a personal secondary display for your phone or laptop embedded in a pair of glasses frames. | Image: TCL TCL is preparing to launch a second iteration of the wearable personal display it released in limited supply last year. Version two, called NxtWear Air, offers the same secondary-display-in-a-pair-of-glasses function as the original but has been made 30 percent lighter — down to 75g compared to 130g. TCL has made some adjustments for the style-conscious, too, tweaking the design to look more like a normal pair of sunglasses and less like something you’d be embarrassed to wear in public.NxtWear Air, like its NxtWear G predecessor, offers two 1080p Micro OLEDs embedded in a pair of glasses frames that should give the wearer the effect of viewing a 140-inch screen from about 13 feet away. Its lenses are opaque, and the glasses don’t offer... Continue reading…

Cync’s line of smart home products now includes new bulb options, an outdoor camera, and a smart thermostat. | Image: GE Lighting Cync, the brand born from C by GE, showed off a huge expansion of its smart lighting line at CES 2022 (yes, in person). Eleven new smart bulbs join its already comprehensive offerings. Plus, the company is expanding further into the smart home with a new outdoor camera and the release of its first smart thermostat, complete with room sensors.Cync also shared its commitment to the new Matter smart home standard, telling The Verge that its color A19 bulb and light strip will be Matter-compatible via a firmware update when the standard launches in mid-2022.Cync’s products — which include light switches, indoor and outdoor bulbs, smart plugs, an indoor camera, and a motion sensor — use Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Mesh for connectivity. They don’t... Continue reading…

Today JBL is taking the wraps off three new portable speakers. The diminutive Pulse 5 and more powerful PartyBox Encore feature integrated light shows, while the BoomBox 3 tries to split the difference with a more stoic, bass-focused design.The waterproof and dustproof (IP67) JBL Pulse 5 ($249.95/£219.99/€249) is a portable Bluetooth 5.3 speaker that fires 360-degree sound and lighting for up to 12 hours on rechargeable battery. The lights can be customized via the JBL Portable app and work without playing any sound at all. The speaker can also be combined with other JBL PartyBoost-enabled speakers for bigger sound and more dynamic lighting. Image: JBL JBL PartyBox Encore. JBL bills the 100 watt PartyBox... Continue reading…

Most home robots unveiled at CES tend to over-promise and under-deliver. Every year, we’re treated to staged demos of prototype “robot butlers” that always fail to materialize as real products. But two new bots created by a startup named Labrador Systems look like they’ll break this cycle. Why? Because the company has kept things simple — extremely simple — by building what are essentially self-driving shelves.The Caddie and Retriever robots are designed to move stuff from A to BLabrador’s robots, named Caddie and Retriever, are designed to help around the house by ferrying goods. They’re both about the size of a side-table and come equipped with wheels and sensors that let them navigate your home. Owners will set a number of... Continue reading…

The Garmin Vivomove Sport (left) and the Venu 2 Plus | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge When you think of Garmin wearables, you’re probably thinking of its running smartwatches — durable and a little bulky, but with excellent GPS, detailed metrics, and long battery life. The company has made strides in recent years to expand beyond its fitness niche, but it seems to have finally hit its stride at CES 2022 with the Venu 2 Plus and the entry-level Vivomove Sport.It might seem a bit soon for a Venu 2 Plus, given that the Venu 2 just launched last April. However, the device fixes one of the more glaring omissions from the Venu 2: voice capabilities. The Venu 2 Plus adds both a speaker and microphone, meaning the smartwatch is now capable of taking and making calls directly from the wrist, as well as adding voice assistant... Continue reading…

AMD CEO Lisa Su. | Image: AMD Ahead of their press conferences at this year’s truncated and part-virtual CES, AMD and Intel are teasing big CPU announcements for the show. AMD’s “product premiere” is due to take place at 10am ET today, while Intel has a “digital-first live experience” scheduled for slightly later at 1pm ET.Intel’s CES tease is focused on one key spec, 5.5GHz, which is expected to be the maximum boost clock speed its upcoming CPU will be able to reach. That’s a 300MHz improvement over the company’s current flagship, the Core i9-12900K, which was announced late last year and can reach a top boost clock speed of 5.2GHz. VideoCardz reports that the new processor could be called the Core i9-12900KS, and may release in late Q1 2022.

The world’s first residential smart door, the Masonite M-Pwr Smart Door, features integrated power and Wi-Fi, a Ring video doorbell, and a Yale smart door lock. | Image: Masonite Door manufacturer Masonite is showcasing the first residential smart door at CES 2022, highlighting the home building industry’s shift toward embracing connected technology. The concept was announced earlier in 2021, but CES is the first chance most will have to see the door in action.A collaboration between Masonite, Ring, and Yale, the M-Pwr Smart Door is the first residential exterior door to integrate power, lights, sensors, a video doorbell, and a smart lock into the door system. Image: Masonite The Masonite smart door features strategically situated motion-activated lighting alongside a Yale door lock and Ring video doorbell. The door, a premium fiberglass model available in a variety of styles, colors,... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Ford says its planning to double production of its upcoming electric pickup truck, the F-150 Lightning, to 150,000 vehicles per year by 2023. The news comes as the automaker prepares to start making and shipping its new EV in the first half of 2022.Production of both the F-150 Lightning and F-150 Lightning Pro for commercial customers has entered its final pre-build stage this week at the company’s Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan. Deliveries of the first trucks are expected to start in the spring.The number of electric F-150s Ford planned on making in its first few years of production has been a bit of a shifting target. At first, the company was only targeting 40,000 vehicles annually, eventually telling... Continue reading…

Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge In a standoff that’s pitting Verizon, AT&T, and the FCC versus the FAA and the airline industry over the two carrier’s plans to upgrade their 5G wireless services, the mobile companies now say they’ve reached an agreement with the Department of Transportation. For Verizon, delaying the launch of the “C-band” spectrum means canceling a celebration scheduled for 1PM ET on Tuesday, marking the beginning of its spectrum upgrade.

The less-expensive Fan Edition of the S21 includes a 6.4-inch 120Hz display. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge After a year of will-they-or-won’t-they speculation, Samsung has, at last, announced the Galaxy S21 FE. Like the 2020 Galaxy S20 FE (the FE stands for Fan Edition), this device features most of the flagship-level specs of the Galaxy S21, including a Snapdragon 888 chipset and 120Hz display, at a lower price: $699 for the 128GB base model. With the S21’s nearly midrange price tag and a compelling upper-midrange option in the Galaxy A52 5G, it’s yet another addition to an already crowded spot in Samsung’s lineup.The Galaxy S21 FE offers a 6.4-inch display, slightly larger than the S21’s 6.2-inch panel. Outside of that size difference, the S21 FE has a whole lot in common with the S21. Its screen is a 1080p OLED panel with 120Hz like the... Continue reading…

Plus multiuser profiles for webOS Continue reading…

Invoxia’s Smart Dog Collar uses miniaturized radars to monitor resting respiratory and heart rate. | Image: Invoxia Pet trackers have been around for ages, but Invoxia is looking to shake things up at CES 2022 with a new smart collar that can also monitor your dog’s vital signs. And of course, the smart collar also doubles as a GPS and activity tracker for your pooch.Canine fitness trackers generally rely on a combination of accelerometers and GPS sensors. Invoxia’s approach is a bit different. To monitor vitals like resting respiratory and heart rate, Invoxia says it worked with board-certified veterinary cardiologists to develop deep learning AI that utilizes miniaturized radar sensors — the same type as the Soli radar Google used in its Pixel 4 phones. According to Invoxia CEO Amélie Caudron, the radars are ideal as they’re capable of taking... Continue reading…

The Game Booster service will cost $50 annually The demands placed on our home networks are higher than ever, especially when it comes to gaming. Netgear was arguably one of the first router manufacturers to optimize the networking needed for gaming with its Nighthawk line of routers. Now, it's attempting the same thing with its new line of 6E enabled Orbi mesh routers. The Game Booster service largely resembles the Nighthawk Pro Gaming application used to configure their XR line of gaming routers, with one glaring difference: it requires a subscription.The Game Booster service for Orbi devices will cost $50 annually, and while this isn’t a massive sum of money, it certainly raises some questions about why Netgear is charging for a service that was previously offered for free on... Continue reading…

The Withings Body Scan has a retractable handle that enables 6-lead EKGs and segmented body composition readings | Image: Withings Withings isn’t a stranger to smart scales, but for CES 2022 the company is taking a much more ambitious take on the gadget. Announced today, the Withings Body Scan will feature six-lead EKG readings, segmented body composition measurements, and the ability to assess foot nerve activity. Basically, it’s the scale for people who want to know how fat is distributed through their body and how that might in turn relate to their heart health.On the surface, the Body Scan looks like your typical scale — albeit with a retractable handle up top. It contains four weight sensors and 14 ITO electrodes in the scale itself, plus an additional four located in the handle. The scale also features a larger 3.2-inch LCD color screen, as well as a battery... Continue reading…

Whether you wanted it or not, NFTs are finding ways of creeping into just about every aspect of our lives. Something that began as a curiosity has quickly expanded to include networking giant Netgear and its connected smart frame, Meural.Regardless of how you feel about NFTs, companies like Netgear are capitalizing on this interest by integrating them into products like the existing Meural Frame. With a way to put these works of “art” on display, it allows these commodities to also become decorations for something besides Twitter profiles.While the Meural began its life as a way to display photos, Netgear recently announced that it would begin beta testing integration between the Meural and the MetaMask cryptocurrency wallet starting... Continue reading…

The rear camera layout of OnePlus’s next flagship, the OnePlus 10 Pro, has been shown off in a teaser image for the smartphone. The handset is due to launch in China on January 11th before coming to the rest of the world later in the year. OnePlus CEO Pete Lau previously confirmed that the phone would be revealed in January in a post on Weibo.Although the teaser image doesn’t show much more than the rear of the phone, it confirms the 10 Pro will have three rear cameras that will once again carry the Hasselblad branding. OnePlus’s partnership with the Swedish camera manufacturer began with last year’s OnePlus 9, where the two companies worked together on the color tuning of the phone’s photos, with generally good results.A three-stage... Continue reading…

Sengled’s smart bulb can track your sleep and your heart rate. | Image: Sengled Sengled, the smart lighting company that’s hedged its protocol bets by making Zigbee, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth smart bulbs, has announced a slew of new products at CES 2022. The most intriguing is the Smart Health Monitoring bulb, and the most fun is the Wi-Fi Video-Sync TV light strips. Sengled has also pledged its support for Matter, the new smart home standard, adding a fourth protocol to its package.For those unfamiliar with the smart lighting company, Sengled offers a variety of connected bulbs covering most smart home bases. Its Zigbee smart bulbs work with a hub, similar to Philips Hue, and are compatible with Alexa, Google, Apple HomeKit, and Samsung SmartThings.Its Wi-Fi bulbs don’t require a hub and work with Alexa, Google, and... Continue reading…

Photo by David Odisho/Getty Images Elizabeth Holmes deliberately misled investors about the capabilities of the blood testing technology at Theranos and is guilty of three counts of wire fraud, a jury found today. She is also guilty of conspiracy to defraud investors with her co-defendant, Sunny Balwani.She faces up to 20 years in prison for each of the counts. The jury found her not guilty of two counts of defrauding patients and not guilty of conspiracy to defraud patients. The jury did not return a verdict on three more counts of defrauding investors.Holmes was the founder and CEO of Theranos, a company that promised to revolutionize blood testing by developing a device that could run hundreds of medical tests on just a few drops of blood. The company was an... Continue reading…

In 2016, Tesla tried to reinvent the humble roof as a beautiful array of glass tiles brimming with solar energy — a vision it’s been struggling to deliver ever since. But San Jose, California-based GAF Energy thinks it has a simpler solution to the solar roof. It’s built a solar shingle, one that can be nailed down in packs much like the everyday shingles you’d use when repairing or replacing your normal, non-solar roof.Solar panel, meet nail gunYou might have heard of solar shingles before, but GAF Energy president Martin DeBono suggests the new Timberline Solar shingles are the first to actually deserve that name because they’re the first to actually work that way — you literally drive nails through a three-inch nailing strip,... Continue reading…

Cineplex, the largest theater chain in Canada, is preparing to temporarily shutter its Ontario auditoriums in response to a government mandate limiting indoor business to help curb the spread of omicron.The theater chain said that all 67 of its theaters in Ontario will close beginning Wednesday, January 5th, adding that the cinemas will reopen “as soon as we are allowed.” The measure comes as Ontario enacts restrictions on schools, dining, and entertainment venues to prevent what Ontario Premier Doug Ford characterized during a Monday news briefing as “a tsunami of new cases in the days and weeks ahead.”“To make it as easy as possible, we have already begun processing ticket refunds back to our guests’ original method of payment.... Continue reading…

Samsung C-Lab program | Image: Samsung For CES 2022, Samsung revealed a new C-Lab startup lineup that includes pet and baby tech with a spin on promoting additional wearable tech promoting safety features.The C-Lab is divided into both C-Lab Inside — an “in-house venture program” and C-Lab Outside — Samsung’s “startup acceleration program.” Established in 2012, the C-Lab Inside incubation program encourages employees to venture out and work on experimental projects. The program expanded in 2018, creating the C-Lab Outside program. Four inside programs were set to exhibit at CES 2022, with projects ranging from test-taking technology and infant health tech.Out of those featured, here are some that stood out:

The new Sleep Number 360 smart bed | Image: Sleep Number Sleep Number’s 360 smart beds are a regular fixture at CES, and this year is no exception. Today, Sleep Number is announcing the latest upgrades to its 360 smart beds, improving some of their built-in sensors and adding on surrounding tech like lights and mobility accessories that it calls “smart furniture.” The idea, according to Sleep Number, is to create more accessible smart beds so that people can age more comfortably or recover from injuries.“Smart furniture” is a new addition that surrounds the 360 smart bed. While it looks like one of those fancy headboards with built-in shelves, Sleep Number says it was built to support sleep health and make its beds more accessible. For example, the smart furniture includes mobility aids to... Continue reading…

BioShock creative lead Ken Levine is reportedly facing trouble. According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, Levine’s studio Ghost Story Games and its long-awaited debut project have been plagued by shifting design goals and an overambitious vision. It’s not a new criticism of Levine, but it suggests that the game’s nearly eight-year waiting period might not end any time soon and hints at some details about what Ghost Story is actually doing.Schreier’s story indicates that Ghost Story, a division of Take-Two Interactive staffed with former members of Levine’s old studio Irrational, was originally supposed to release a small game in 2017. The project was a sci-fi shooter set on a “mysterious space station” where three factions would respond... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple’s market cap briefly passed $3 trillion on Monday more than a year after it surpassed the $2 trillion mark and three years after eclipsing $1 trillion.Apple’s huge success is due in large part to the iPhone, which revolutionized the smartphone industry and remains a cash cow for the company. But Apple continues to see strong momentum in its other businesses as well, with its services and Mac divisions reporting all-time highs in its Q4 2021 earnings.Shortly after hitting the $3 trillion milestone at around 1:45PM ET, Apple’s market cap dipped below it again. Apple’s market cap must be above the $3 trillion mark when the market closes at 4PM ET for it to officially be designated as the first publicly-traded company with that... Continue reading…

Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images The Wall Street Journal points out that on New Year’s Eve, Tesla revealed on its Weibo page the launch of a new dealership in Xinjiang, a region where the Chinese government has been accused of human rights violations against Uyghur Muslims. Image: Weibo / Tesla Just over a week ago, President Joe Biden signed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that “[we] call on the Government of the People’s Republic of China to immediately end genocide and crimes against humanity against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang.”Earlier in December, the Treasury Department sanctioned several Chinese... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge You should always be wary of invites to a stranger’s Home.That’s the upshot of a new piece of security research that has found a vulnerability capable of locking iOS devices into a spiral of freezing, crashing, and rebooting if a user connects to a sabotaged Apple Home device.The vulnerability, discovered by security researcher Trevor Spiniolas, can be exploited through Apple’s HomeKit API, the software interface that allows an iOS app to control compatible smart home devices. If an attacker creates a HomeKit device with an extremely long name — around 500,000 characters — then an iOS device that connects to it will become unresponsive once it reads the device name and enter a cycle of freezing and rebooting that can only be ended by... Continue reading…

Apple is now selling a new set of special edition AirPod Pros (via 9to5Mac) in time for the Chinese New Year, which begins on February 1st, 2022. Just as the previous Year of the Ox, Apple is engraving a special emoji on the AirPods Pro case — this time, themed for the Year of the Tiger.At first glance, it seems like only the standard tiger emoji is featured on the case — but turns out, it’s just a bit more snazzy with sparkles and fireworks surrounding the tiger face topped off with a cute tiger growly-face hood. Other than that, the only other difference is the retail box has the same emoji in red on the sides. Images from Apple Store website New special edition Year of the Tiger AirPods on the left comparing... Continue reading…

Arlo has announced a new smart home security system. | Image: Arlo Arlo announced the impending arrival of its long-awaited home security system at CES 2022 this week, and the product even got a nod as a 2022 CES Innovation Award honoree. The company, known for its top-quality smart security cameras, also announced its support for Matter, a possible indication that a Matter specification for security cameras isn’t too far away.The DIY security monitoring solution is a natural expansion for the company that has a full suite of home security cameras. So natural that it actually announced one at CES 2019.While that product never saw the light of day, the latest Arlo Security System is a complete redesign. The signature feature are the new, all-in-one multi-sensors with eight different functions, plus... Continue reading…

Photo by: Jeffrey Greenberg/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Blood tests on pregnant people that look for rare and devastating developmental conditions in fetuses are often wrong, according to an investigation from The New York Times.The blood testing technology, called noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT), works very well for more common disorders like Down syndrome. But The New York Times reported that a review of data from multiple studies showed that when NIPT is used to test for uncommon things like Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome (which is found in one in 20,000 births) or Cri-du-chat syndrome (which is found in one in 15,000 births), positive results are wrong 80 percent of the time or more.These tests, made by companies like Natera and Sequenom, have become more popular in recent years.... Continue reading…

The Acer Chromebook Spin 513 has a battery life of up to 10 hours. | Image by Acer Acer announced that it’s updating its existing lineup of Chromebooks with three new devices at CES 2022, each of which comes with slight changes when compared to its predecessors. Image by Acer The new Spin 513 has a larger 13.5-inch display compared to its predecessor. The new Spin 513 comes with a 13.5-inch display, an upgrade from the 13-inch screen that the previously released Spin 513 had. It swaps the Snapdragon 7c Compute SC7180 in for the MediaTek Kompanio 1380, a new processor that also comes with eight cores. And like all Spin models, you can bend back the screen to use the Chromebook as a tablet or stand it up on a flat surface in a tent-like position when watching videos.However, there is a bit of... Continue reading…

The L’Oreal ColorSonic is meant to make at-home hair coloring more convenient. | Image: L’Oreal While you might not expect it, L’Oreal has been a regular at CES these past few years, launching everything from wearable UV and pH sensors to an AI-powered skin care gadget. This year, the company is back with yet another invention, the Colorsonic — a device meant to make dying your hair at home a hell of a lot more convenient.The Colorsonic doesn’t look too far off from other hair styling gadgets. The top half has a nozzle with bristles, while the bottom half stores a cartridge containing a “precise mix of developer and formula.” The device works by dispensing the correct amount of hair color and then the bristles oscillate over 300 times a minute at a specific angle to evenly apply the color. Basically, the idea behind the device is... Continue reading…

The German automaker claims improved aerodynamics and battery efficiency allows for 1,000 km of range Continue reading…

Image: Comcast Comcast has announced that its xFi Advanced Gateway Wi-Fi router is getting an upgrade — the new version will support the Wi-Fi 6E standard and have support for the Zigbee and Matter IoT standards built in. Comcast says that the addition of a third, 6GHz band alongside the 2.4 and 5GHz bands found on its old gateway (and most modern, decent routers) should make the router ready for homes with dozens of wireless devices, including ones that use lots of bandwidth like VR headsets and gaming consoles.The selling point of the new (in terms of wireless standards, anyway) Wi-Fi 6E is that it can provide more bandwidth to power more devices, all with less potential for interference from other networks. Support for this standard should,... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Update 11:55AM ET, January 3rd: GameStop has sold out of this Xbox Series X bundle for now.We’re off and running in the year 2022 with new console restocks. While we’re all hoping that availability of the popular PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles opens up so anyone can buy a console at retail price whenever they choose, for now we have to keep our eyes peeled, remain vigilant, and keep our F5 keys ready.While GameStop finished off 2021 with a series of scheduled in-store selling events for new consoles — giving us a throwback to the old days of lining up outside of stores in person — the video game retailer now has Xbox Series X consoles available on its site to order. You can pick up an Xbox Series X bundle, complete with Far... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Ring Fit Adventure, the box set for the Nintendo Switch that includes the fitness adventure game along with a pilates ring that a Joy-Con slides into, is selling for just $54.99 at Best Buy and Amazon, matching the best price we’ve seen. It’s normally $85. Actually, it’s been selling for this price since Black Friday, but if your New Year’s resolutions include getting in shape, this game is a fun, effective way to stay moving.The single-player campaign is actually a turn-based RPG where you fight against enemies by doing exercise reps. It tracks your form, making sure you don’t go too easy on yourself, though you can set the difficulty. Considering it’s a workout, it’s actually pretty fun. Read our review.This game was in short supply... Continue reading…

The Eve Outdoor Cam is a smart floodlight camera that works with HomeKit Secure Video. | Image: Eve Smart home company Eve Systems has announced its first outdoor camera and the availability of its Thread-powered smart shades at CES 2022 this week.A floodlight camera designed for Apple HomeKit Secure Video, the $250 Eve Outdoor Cam, launches April 5th, 2022 and features 1080p video, a 157-degree field of view, infrared night vision, and infrared motion detection covering 100 degrees at distances of up to 30 feet. The Wi-Fi powered camera joins the Eve Cam, the company’s indoor camera.This is just the second HomeKit Secure Video-compatible smart floodlight camera to launch; a floodlight camera is an outdoor security camera with motion-activated floodlights attached. The Netatmo Outdoor Camera is the other currently available option... Continue reading…