The $100 Fitbit Air is available for preorder today. Wearables have really come full circle. The early Fitbits didn’t have screens, but the move to smartwatches put a screen on everyone’s wrist. Now, devices like Whoop and Hume are designed as data trackers first and foremost without so much…
TSMC backs renewables during record demand for energy-hungry chip manufacturing. Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC is raking in record profits during the AI boom—but it is also racing to help Taiwan develop wind power and other energy alternatives to fossil fuels amid a global energy crisis. The chipmaker has signed a…
Google’s smart home ecosystem is getting its biggest update since the AI-fueled 2025 revamp. Google launched its big AI-fueled redesign of Google Home late last year, and it has been adding features here and there ever since. Today, the company announced a bigger update that might take care of…
“To be clear: Notepad++ has never released a macOS version.” As its name implies, the venerable Notepad++ text editor began as a more capable version of the classic Windows Notepad, with features such as line numbering and syntax highlighting. It was created in 2003 by Don Ho, who continues…
Chip shortages and demand from AI enthusiasts are both playing a part. Apple’s Mac mini and Mac Studio desktops have been increasingly difficult to buy over the course of the year—multiple configurations are listed on Apple’s site as “currently unavailable,” which almost never happens, and others will take weeks…
Acoustic fire suppression goes commercial. In a makeshift demonstration kitchen in Concord, California, cooking oil splatters in and around a frying pan, which catches fire on an unattended gas stove. Within moments, a smoke detector wails. But in this demonstration, something less common happens: An AI-driven sensor activates and…
Op-ed: Valve has made a dent in Windows’ gaming share, but can it keep going? Valve and its SteamOS operating system have already done what a bunch of companies (including Apple) have been trying to do for decades: make a dent in Windows’ dominance in PC gaming. I mean,…
AWS stops billing Middle East cloud customers as repairs to war damage drag on. Amazon’s cloud customers will need to wait several more months before the US tech company can repair war-damaged data centers and restore normal operations in the Middle East. The announcement comes two months after Iranian…
Meta said the Kenyan workers didn’t “meet our standards.” In February, numerous workers from a company that Meta contracted to perform data annotation for Ray-Ban Meta reported viewing sensitive, embarrassing, and seemingly private footage recorded by the smart glasses. About two months later, Meta ended its contract with the…
Beijing’s citywide ban restricts the sale, transport, and storage of drones. China’s new clampdown on drone sales and even the storage of drone components within the capital of Beijing stands out in a country that effectively built the global market for affordable commercial drones. The unprecedented citywide rules taking…
