The little pixel clock that became part of my smart home
The Ulanzi TC001 is a small Wi-Fi clock built around a 32 x 8 RGB LED matrix. It’s compact, bright and just retro enough to be charming without looking like something dragged out of an arcade cabinet. Out of the box, the appeal is simple. The display is clear enough to read from across a room, small enough to sit unobtrusively on a desk or kitchen bench, and far more interesting than another anonymous black LCD clock.
Ordinary Wi-Fi can identify people with nearly 100% accuracy
“Better the devil you know ...” That’s a worst-case scenario outlook. The best case is an angel you know. But what if that angel was somewhat of a devil all along? Researchers have shown that ordinary Wi-Fi technology can serve as a powerful surveillance tool.
Sonic micro-robots burst into motion without batteries or motors
Nowadays, technology is increasingly focused on making electronics smaller, as many industries – from medicine to aerospace and security – stand to benefit. But reducing the size of devices brings a new challenge: what if they become simply too small to fit a conventional battery, motor, and other mechanical parts?
Tiny, modular pod attacks macro photography's lighting nightmare
Macro photography captures beautiful, otherworldly images of the tiny world around us. But to shoot a dewdrop or an insect's eye, you have to get so close that the camera itself blocks out most of the light you need. Adaptalux's answer to that problem is the Pod Mini, a palm-sized portable lighting hub that's just gotten its first major overhaul – he
Claude will now watermark all content generated using its tools
Roughly three-quarters of newly published web pages now carry some machine-written text, according to a 2025 Ahrefs analysis of around 900,000 pages. This figure doesn’t account for offline documents. It also only covers text. Generative AI now produces music, illustrations, software, photographs and increasingly convincing video. The problem is that much of it is becoming difficult to distinguish from human-c
Upgradeable mini PC doubles as a portable Steam gaming console
Valve's Steam Machine is the gaming system that PC gamers have been dreaming of for years. Sadly, it's hard to get your hands on one, and it costs a pretty penny. This new mini PC with some clever tricks up its sleeve might be just the thing to shop for instead.
Humanoid 'Olympics' reveal why the US can't compete with China's robots
As the second World Humanoid Robot Games got under way on August 21 at Beijing’s National Speed Skating Oval, most of the interest has been on the machine sprinters and boxers. But away from the sporting arena, the five-day games reveal something telling about why China's winning this technology race.
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USA finally gets the modular smartphone owners can repair themselves
As right-to-repair rules spread and buyers grow weary of sealed, disposable slabs, a handful of companies are betting that people will pay for a device they can actually open up and keep going for years.
HoverAir's latest flyer eradicates divide between pocket cam and drone
The line between a pocket camera and a drone keeps getting blurrier, and HoverAir has just about erased it. The company, which helped pioneer the self-flying camera, has now shared full specifications for the Versa, the palm-sized gimbal camera it teased earlier this month. We covered the initial reveal when the Versa first broke cover, and this follow-up digs into
Tiny turtles to cuttlefish combat: 2026 photo winners revealed
It's that time of the year again – when nature photo competition winners are announced and we get to look at some amazing images that remind us that the world is made up of more than AI slop. For now, anyway.
Category: Photography, Consu
Programmable photonic chip could unlock light-speed optical computing
We want faster and faster computers, and light is the fastest thing in the universe. Therefore, light-based computers should be awesome. Right? Not quite. Computing isn't always about data arriving fast. Sometimes it's about arriving on cue. We have learned how to forc
Blu-ray burner doubles as USB hub and card reader
Modern laptops are the thinnest they’ve ever been. But this sleek form factor has a cost: optical drives are a thing of the past, full-size USB ports are becoming less common, and card readers are often an optional extra. BluHub is aiming to restore a lot of this lost connectivity via a single box.
The Minimal Phone 2 encourages you to type, not scroll
Los Angeles-based The Minimal Company specializes in stripped-down phones that put just a handful of essential tools in your pocket and leave out the distracting stuff. Its latest model marks a major departure, while aiming to stay true to the vision of reducing your screen time.
Retro e-paper alarm clock puts kibosh on late-night phone scrolling
Designed in Copenhagen, the Habity bedside clock swaps your phone screen's glow for an eye-friendly e-paper display, gentle wake-up tones, and a local library of sleep sounds, all running fully offline with no app, account, or subscription.
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Your own personal poison-snooper as a wearable skin patch
An alcoholic drink will give you a buzz, but if someone laced it with something dangerous, a new poison-snooping patch will buzz your skin to warn you. It can also detect heavy metals in water and toxic aerosols, and can work as an e-skin for robots.
OpenAI's Jony Ive-designed AI device targets home use
After more than a year of rumors about what legendary former Apple designer Jony Ive and OpenAI might be building together, we finally have a reasonably clear idea.
Category: AI and Humanoids, Technology
Dreame D30 Ultra review: Flagship-ish cleaning for not flagship dollars
I recently reviewed the top-o'-the-line Narwal Flow 2 – my very first robovac ever, so I got a taste of the "country-club-rich-guy life," and it did not disappoint. The thing absolutely rocks. At $1,400, I'd hope so. If I bought it as a consumer rather than being given a unit for review, I'd be big mad if it didn't work.
Eye-popping turntable flips vinyl into a vertical spin
Though streaming rules the listening roost, physical formats like vinyl are growing in popularity. If you want to wow your friends while spinning your latest album acquisition, vertical turntables are sure to fit the bill – such as the Ruka TD-1.
DARPA honors drone teams for light copters that carry heavy loads
Presently, cargo-carrying helicopters and multirotor drones have at best a 1:1 payload-to-body-weight ratio. However, think how much more efficient they would be if that ratio could be boosted to 4:1 or beyond.
Category: Drones, Consumer Tech,
Honor's bonkers emoting robot-arm camera phone is actually for sale
A few months ago, Chinese phone brand Honor teased one of the oddest concepts we've seen for a handset: it hid a folding robot arm attached to a camera.
Category: Mobile Technology
Modular yard robot mows lawns, plows snow, gathers leaves and trims grass
Owning a house and maintaining a yard all year round can feel like having a second job. Homeowners usually end up with a garage filled with various equipment: a lawn mower, snow blower, shovels, and tools for clearing fallen leaves. Currently available on Kickstarter, the Yarbo M attempts to combine all those individual tools into one compact robotic platform that can automatically do all the yard work.
Irsay auction offers an array of priceless cultural memorabilia
Some people collect cars, some collect art, jewelry, ceramics, first edition books, entertainment memorabilia, movie posters and guitars while others collect baseball cards, comic books, video games and vintage technology. Items that were once throwaways are now sometimes worth a million bucks... quite literally.
Category: Collectibles,
Mopping robovac locates stains around your home using UV rays
While other robot vacuums are busy bumping into things around your home and making a racket, Shark's latest model is taking a different approach to cleaning up messes.
Category: Around The Hom
EDC clamping tool gets a grip on retro/modern design
When it comes to everyday carry (EDC) tools, we usually think of folding knives, compact multitools, and ultralight flashlights. One category, however, is often overlooked – reliable clamping tools. The new MetMo Pocket Grip, developed by a small engineering team from the UK, reimagines a century-old device to fill that gap. It's currently on Kickstarter.
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Two days left to save 71% on this hit carry-on that's raised $1.2M from fans
As someone who has spent the last year bouncing between five countries and lugging suitcases on and off of countless trains, trams, high-speed rail carriages, buses and flights, I now actually understand why good suitcases are more than aesthetics. They make travel life so much easier.
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Countertop AI robotic chef makes meals from ingredients that you supply
Pair fresh ingredients with the Nosh One – an AI robotic chef currently on Kickstarter – and the busy professional may need never worry about meals, aside from choosing a recipe from a menu of over 500 dishes spanning 11-plus international cuisines.
Category: Around The Home, Li
Countertop 3-in-1 cooker lets you wood-smoke food in your own kitchen
Inclement weather, lack of a back yard, or Draconian HOA (homeowner association) rules may no longer be barriers to enjoying perfectly cooked meats without constant vigilance. SmoqeX, a countertop-sized 3-in-1 indoor smoker, air fryer and grill is now on Kickstarter.
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Full-size bed rolls into a wooden box at the press of a button
Living in a smaller space saves money, but often comes at the cost of comfort: in a tiny studio apartment, a full-size bed can take up 80% of the room. Today’s market offers some solutions, but none seem perfect: inflatable mattresses are time-consuming, Murphy beds occupy an entire wall, and sleeper sofas are notoriously mediocre couches and even worse beds.
Dyson's new wet cleaner is the slimmest floor washer on the planet
Dyson is following up its impossibly compact PencilVac vacuum cleaner from 2025 with the PencilWash, a wet cleaner that promises to make light work of mopping floors in small homes with a slim handle that'll have you wondering where the water goes.
Battery-free tool combines functions of ratcheting screwdriver and socket set
Frustration during repair jobs often comes from not having the right tool or bit size at hand, or from the tool’s battery suddenly dying mid-task. These are the inconveniences that Hong Kong-based company FixBuddy set out to address with the FixBuddy Ratchet. The team describes it as “the ultimate everyday screwdriver” intended for DIY enthusiasts, engineers, and designers.
Ferrari children's car sells for $243,864 – smashes record auction price
Since a $145,445 Ferrari 330 P2 Junior claimed the World record price for a children's car at auction in February 2021, the prices of luxury children's cars have been surging, culminating in Paris last week when RM Sotheby's sold a Ferrari Testa Rossa J that pushed the record to new heights at $243,864 – just shy of a quarter million United States
Adaptable flax fiber furniture morphs to meet your needs
Ideally, we want our furniture to be long-lasting, good-looking, functional, recyclable, lightweight, easy to assemble, and – last but not least – affordable. Traditional products usually check only a few of these boxes at a time, but it seems that a better solution has finally been found: LinumTube furniture.
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