Author: News Room
Steam made me feel glum for years. I’d be told about an indie gem and dart over to Steam, only to discover the game was Windows-only and not available for Mac. Even so, I bought quite a few titles, on the basis that, at some point in the future, I might actually be able to play them. But I wasn’t terribly keen on investing in a Windows PC after my last adventure with one. And although I did wheel out the deeply impressive Parallels Desktop for the odd session, manually tweaking a virtual machine for games has always felt like too much of a…
I can’t remember the last time I got excited about a fan. Normally, I just buy whatever Vornado or Dreo model fits my budget, but that was before I started testing the battery-powered Standing Circulator Fan from SwitchBot.As the name indicates, the SwitchBot fan is a 3D circulator — a fancy way of saying that it can tilt up, down, left, and right to push a decent amount air around a room. It looks okay, despite all the plastic, is relatively quiet, runs for hours on battery, has an integrated nightlight, transforms from a desktop to standing fan in seconds,…
Thinking about upgrading your phone? You’ve come to the right place. With so many models to choose from, it can be tricky to know which one’s worth your money. That’s why we’ve put together this guide, highlighting our top picks based on the things that matter most day to day. Whether you’re drawn to a big-screen Android or Apple’s latest iPhone, these are the handsets we think stand out. We don’t just look at spec sheets – we test phones in real life. That means streaming shows to see how long the battery lasts, snapping hundreds of photos in different…
Nothing’s next budget phone is the latest victim of RAMageddon. As 9to5Google reports, Nothing co-founder Akis Evangelidis announced in a post on X that a follow-up to the CMF Phone 2 Pro won’t be coming this year:We were working on a successor but with memory prices where they are right now, we can’t build a phone that feels like a genuine step forward at a price that makes sense for CMF. As a result, we’ve decided not to launch a new CMF phone this year.Last week, Nothing CEO and co-founder Carl Pei also said the RAM shortage has impacted the…
Apple has explained why it will surprisingly drop support for three years worth of Apple Watch models when watchOS 27 arrives later this year. The answer probably won’t surprise you either. The Apple Watch SE 2 Apple Watch Series 6, 7, 8, and even the first generation Apple Watch Ultra will not receive access to watchOS 27 later this year. Historical precedent has seen Apple work to support as many legacy models as possible and, at most, drop one generation from the line-up if deemed absolutely necessary. That changes this year in a significant way and Apple has explained why…
Nothing’s efforts to launch the next-generation CMF Phone has come to nothing. The company has confirmed it has cancelled the CMF Phone 3 Pro due to escalating RAM costs. In what could be a sign of things to come, the company says the price of memory is making it much harder for manufacturers to launch phones that feel like a significant improvement on current models. Nothing co-founder Akis Evangelidis says, as a result, there’ll be no new instalment for the budget line this year. He says in a post on X: “A lot of you have been asking when the…
The launch of the new Google Home smart speaker earlier this week means the end of the road for a pair of legacy models getting a little long in the tooth. Google has confirmed the Nest Home Mini and Nest Audio have been discontinued and will no longer be available for sale. The reasoning, it appears, is quite simple. The company doesn’t want to be offering any products that get in the way of its Gemini Artificial Intelligence Skynet-ing the bejesus out of the entire planet. Thankfully, for owners of those six-plus-year-old speakers (aside: remember when buying a speaker was…
Smart lighting company Philips Hue has launched its first wired wall modules. Installed behind existing wall switches, the new devices bring non-smart lights into the Hue ecosystem for the first time. Hue also announced new Play table and floor lamps that are more affordable versions of its Signe series, along with upgrades to its E14 candle bulbs that add a broader white light spectrum and Matter-over-Thread compatibility.The new lights are now available globally; however, the Wired Wall Switch Modules are Europe-only. Signify CTO George Yianni told The Verge that there are currently no plans to launch them in the US,…
Smart ring specialist Oura has teamed up with Harry Kane and Declan Rice to track sleep and recovery during the World Cup and afterwards. The England captain and vice-captain have been using Oura Ring 5 to track their health metrics, highlighting the role that factors like sleep and recovery play in elite performance. And the players are clearly in a good place, with Kane scoring twice in England’s entertaining 4-2 victory over Croatia. The result put Thomas Tuchel’s side top of Group L after the first round of matches. The players will be hoping to take the same level of…
NTS Radio and Swedish audio company Atonemo have teamed up on a dedicated player that brings NTS’s genre-defying mixes and streaming stations to almost any stereo or speaker setup. And, like Atonemo’s existing Streamplayer, you can also listen to your favorite streaming services with it, using AirPlay 2, Google Cast, Spotify Connect, or Tidal Connect.The $179 NTS Radio Player puts out 24-bit / 192kHz audio over a standard 3.5mm audio jack and comes with an adapter cable for connecting to RCA on your vintage hi-fi system, or whatever other speakers you have lying around. The top of the device has…
When Colin Farrell was doing press for the first season of the detective series Sugar, he had to be very careful with how he spoke. Sugar is a story about a quirky private detective, but it’s also secretly a work of science fiction, something that doesn’t become clear until halfway through the season. “I knew that I could get the show in deep shit if I revealed certain things,” he tells me. Now as Sugar heads into its next season, which starts streaming on Apple TV on June 19th, Farrell says he feels “unburdened” by the previous veil of secrecy.…
If you’ve been following my reporting on the Trump phone, you’ll know that Trump Mobile doesn’t exactly keep open lines of communication with the media. That doesn’t look to be changing, with the company no longer working with its long-term media relations firm.Poplar Group has represented Trump Mobile since at least last June, when the company’s founding partner Chris Walker gave a statement to USA Today, insisting at the time that “T1 phones are proudly being made in America.” That, of course, is not true, which even Trump Mobile now admits.I’ve spoken to Walker a few times, and he offered…