Author: News Room

If you’re planning to travel this summer, both a Bluetooth tracker and a personal safety device can come in handy, especially if you’ll be exploring on your own. The Pebblebee Halo combines those two gadgets into one, and it’s currently on sale for $49.99 ($10 off) at Amazon, which is the best price we’ve seen. Amazon is also throwing in a fourth Halo for free when you buy three as a part of a limited time promotion.Whether you’re touring a new city or heading back to your hotel after a night out, the Halo can help in a variety of…

Google’s new “24/7” AI agent, Gemini Spark, can be shockingly good at doing things on your behalf. But I’m not sure it’s worth the financial cost and potential privacy tradeoffs.The company gave me access to Spark last week. Google advertises Spark as an AI agent that can take on tasks and work on them in the background — even tasks that have multiple steps — allowing you to put your phone down or walk away from your computer. It also advertises at the very top of the Spark website that it’s “always under your direction,” that “you choose to turn…

Apple may be planning a new Apple Music music streaming tier that limits the number of skip listeners can make, potentially in exchange for a cheaper monthly fee, or even ad-supported access. Code strings found in the Apple Music for Android beta by MacRumors’ analyst Aaron Perris feature references like “can’t skip any more tracks” and “premium access required”. Considering Apple Music is currently single tier – paid-only and ad-free – it suggests the company may be at least testing or laying the groundwork for a Spotify-like approach where some features exist only behind a Premium paywall. NEW: It appears…

Meta’s AI support chatbot helped hackers hijack Instagram accounts, as reported earlier by 404 Media. In a video shared on Telegram, a hacker shows how they could take over an account by asking Meta’s chatbot to switch the email associated with someone else’s profile and then reset the password.Meta rolled out its AI-powered support assistant in March, which is supposed to help with things like resetting your password, setting up two-factor authentication, and regaining access to your account. As shown in the Telegram video, a hacker simply asked Meta’s support chatbot, “Just link to my new mail address i send…

Microsoft has announced the Surface Laptop Ultra, which is the most powerful Surface device yet. The new best laptop from the Windows-maker also happens to be the most powerful “thing” Microsoft has ever made. That’s thanks to the Nvidia RTX Spark chipset chosen to power the thing. The new silicon is Nvidia’s effort to muscle in on the traditional territory of Intel, AMD and Qualcomm, rather than settle for providing the best graphics chips. The new top-end chip was announced at Computex is the Windows-friendly version of the GB10 chip. It has 20 CPU cores based on ARM architecture, 6144…

Asus has announced a new version of its Windows-based ROG XBOX Ally with an OLED display and improved controls. However, to get your hands on the supercharged handheld gaming console, you’ll need to buy a special anniversary bundle. The ROG XBOX Ally X20 now includes a 7.4-inch 1080p OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and 0.2ms response time – or ROG Nebula HDR Display as the company calls it. That’s an upgrade on the existing 7-inch IPS display available with the standard Asus ROG XBOX Ally. The new display supports FreeSync Premium Pro support with 1,400 nits of peak…

Nvidia has officially entered the world of consumer laptop chips with the RTX Spark, and several device makers already have hardware lined up for it. Microsoft, Asus, HP, MSI, Lenovo, and Dell are expected to launch RTX Spark laptops sometime this fall, and some of those partner companies have shared details about what we can expect.The common feature shared by all of the upcoming launches is that Arm-based Nvidia RTX Spark superchip, though several variations are in the pipeline. The flagship version unveiled by Nvidia at Computex includes 20 CPU cores, 6,144 GPU cores, and 128GB of LPDDR5X memory —…

Microsoft is heading to San Francisco this week in a bid to win back developers at its Build conference. I’ve been attending Build since the days when Microsoft called it the Professional Developers Conference, and I can’t remember a more pivotal moment. As Microsoft continues to reshuffle its entire business around AI, it’s moving Build into a smaller, more intimate venue. Trust in Windows and GitHub is at an all-time low, and this is Microsoft’s chance to reconnect with developers and outline the future.Sources tell me that we’ll hear about new AI models in Windows, a new reasoning model from…

In an update on its developer hub, Strava blames the change on “zero-code AI tools” that allow users to quickly create apps that “hammer” APIs. “We have felt this firsthand — developer applications to our program are up 448% year-to-date, API intermediaries have violated policy terms, and scraping attempts have degraded platform performance for everyone,” the company writes. Reddit similarly began charging developers to access its API in 2023.Additionally, Strava users can now use a new tool that allows them to link their fitness data — including pace, per-second heart rate, GPS data, and more — to Claude. The company…

Not content with making some of the best smartphones and laptops, Apple looks set to bring out its own smart glasses, bringing the fight straight to the likes of the Ray-Ban Meta (pictured above) and Google/Samsung. Trouble is, it sounds like you’ll have to wait a little while longer to don them. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple’s first smart glasses are now targeting a launch in late 2027 after reportedly slipping from an earlier early-2027 timeframe. The report also offers a clearer idea of what these might actually look like when they land. Apple’s first-generation glasses are expected to…

Over the past several years, Microsoft has largely managed to withstand populist calls to break up Big Tech while peers faced sweeping lawsuits. But a probe by the Federal Trade Commission suggests that grace period could be nearing an end.Earlier this year, Bloomberg outlined the contents of civil investigative demands (CIDs) — similar to a subpoena — the FTC sent to at least half a dozen companies that compete with Microsoft. New details obtained by The Verge further reveal the FTC’s interests, suggesting the agency is particularly concerned with potentially exclusionary behavior around Microsoft’s Azure cloud services, as well as…

If you’re hoping Apple’s first folding iPhone Ultra will land in a crazy finish like orange or dark red like some of its existing and rumoured iPhone counterparts, you might want to temper your expectations. A newly leaked image claims to show Apple’s rumoured folding iPhone in white. The image, shared by regular Apple leaker Ice Universe on Weibo, appears to show a dummy unit rather than a functioning device, but fellow leaker Instant Digital claims that white is currently the only colour believed to be locked in. According to multiple reports, Apple is expected to keep colour options for…