Author: News Room

It’s been six long years since Google loyalists were last treated to a new smart speaker, but that wait will soon be over: the new Google Home Smart Speaker is finally up for pre-order, and devices will start shipping as early as next week. The compact speaker, which was built from the ground up for Google’s smarter Gemini voice assistant, was first revealed back in October. In that time the firm has been hard at work on adding conversational AI that can compete with Amazon’s Alexa+ and better integrating the assistant with its other hardware. Each compact, almost-spherical speaker will…

Matter, the smart home interoperability standard, might finally get a feature that should have been there from day one: a single shared Matter network managed by multiple ecosystems. With this feature, called Joint Fabric, smart devices added to the network will be controllable by any authorized platform — Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and the rest. No need to “share” your smart light between apps; set it up once, and control it everywhere. It’s like your smart home is a joint bank account and your platforms of choice all have signing authority.Joint Fabric is part of the new Matter…

I’ll admit it. I was wrong. Wildly colorful lighting is delightful for your smart home — well, outdoors, at least.Smart lighting is one of my favorite features of the smart home — it combines convenience with ambiance, letting you change the entire look of your room with just a press of a button. But, other than the occasional pop of color, mostly in my kids’ rooms and outdoors around the holidays, I’ve never found much use for color-changing lights. I prefer the subtler effects of tunable white light combined with dimming to set the scene indoors, and that preference also…

The next humanoid robot might not have a head. It might not have legs. It might even sit on a wheeled base and fold down like a deck chair. But, as Genesis AI puts it, “humanoid robots don’t need to look human.”That explains the look of Eno, the new robot from the French startup backed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Genesis says Eno is designed “around human capability” rather than human appearance and is intended as a fully “general-purpose” robot rather than a machine built around a single task, like folding laundry. One part is still very human though:…

I’m a fan of LED masks. I’ve been using them for two years and feel my skin has improved so much – I very rarely get spots and my complexion is better than it was. At 44 years old with no botox, fillers etc., I feel the therapy is doing a good job of combating pesky wrinkles and promoting collagen production (but I do also take supplements for this). I was converted via the excellent Therabody TheraFace Mask, which even faded a scar I had under my eye, in just a few weeks. I’ve mainly used the Shark CryoGlow Mask…

The Freak X has always been the most wearable watch in Ulysse Nardin’s unconventional Freak universe. Now it’s been rebuilt from the ground up. To mark both 180 years of the manufacture and 25 years of the Freak family, Ulysse Nardin has unveiled a completely reengineered Freak X. It took more than two years of development, and the result is smaller, smarter, and more polished than anything the line has produced before. The flying carousel architecture, where the movement itself acts as the hands, completing one full revolution every 60 minutes, stays intact. But powering it is an entirely new…

Snap is finally launching augmented glasses for the public. Specs, which Snap describes as “a wearable computer built into see-through augmented reality glasses,” will cost $2,195. You can preorder a pair of Specs now at specs.com with a $200 refundable deposit, and Snap says they’re expected to ship “this fall” in the US, UK, and France.This is a big moment for Snap: The company made a big entry into smart glasses with its original Spectacles in 2016, and the company has been toiling away on nonpublic AR versions of Spectacles over the past few years. CEO Evan Spiegel promised the…

Smart glasses are still a nascent category, but chipmaker Qualcomm is hard at work upgrading the silicon to power the next wave of XR devices: the Snapdragon Reality Elite.Although Qualcomm is announcing the chip today at Augmented World Expo, we’ve technically already gotten a hands-on with a device powered by the new chip at last month’s Google I/O: the forthcoming Aura glasses for Android XR. At the time, Xreal and Google were coy about the processor upgrades to the long-awaited spectacles. Turns out, it was the Reality Elite.Spec-wise, the new chip focuses on across-the-board performance upgrades. The GPU gets a…

The Project Aura glasses collaboration between Xreal and Google is now one step closer to being something you can buy. Reservations for the second Android XR device, now dubbed the Xreal Aura, are available for $99 starting today, with a full launch in the US, UK, Japan, Canada, and South Korea expected sometime this Fall.The Xreal Aura follows Google’s first Android-powered XR device, the Samsung Galaxy XR headset, which launched at $1,799 in October 2025. We still don’t have a full price for the Aura — which Google has previously described as “a headset masquerading as glasses” — but Best…

Verizon is launching a new Simplicity plan that starts at $30 / month for new customers, or $45 / month for existing ones. In its announcement, Verizon says the plan drops activation and upgrade fees, while offering one flat price for each line.The $30 price for new customers is an “initial promotional offer” that applies after enabling autopay and taking advantage of a discount for switching carriers, according to Verizon. But before customers can ditch Verizon’s $40 fee to activate or upgrade a device, they’ll need to opt in to the carrier’s new loyalty program through the My Verizon app.…

Snap has announced the consumer version of Specs its AR glasses that it believes can eventually replace the smartphone – but the wearable device will carry a seriously hefty price tag. The wearable will ship to the public later this year for an eye-watering $2,195 (around $1,635) and will be available in the UK, USA and France. They can be pre-ordered with a refundable $200 (around £149) deposit and will likely beat expected offerings from offerings from Apple and Google to market. Previously, Snap had offered Specs to developers, but the new consumer devices will be slimmer, will carry a…

Following its official debut last month, Google is now rolling out Android 17 to compatible Pixel phones, alongside additional exclusive features as part of the June Pixel Drop. Not every feature announced alongside the OS at the pre-I/O Android Show is available today, though.Android 17 itself is arriving on Pixel phones today, and Google says other manufacturers will be issuing the update throughout 2026. The biggest user interface update is the introduction of Bubbles, floating app windows that you can open with a long press — similar floating windows are already found in many Android skins, but are now an…