Author: News Room
On Monday morning, a judge overseeing the New York state case on the killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO ruled that some evidence collected by police could not be shown to a jury.It wasn’t the only news coming out of the hearing. Outside the courthouse, Molly Crane-Newman, a New York Daily News reporter, captured on video several attendees giving incendiary remarks to the press. One of the attendees, Lena Weissbrot, said the children of Brian Thompson, who was shot and killed in December 2024, were “better off without him” and that they “needed to learn to not be like their dad.”…
University graduates are booing and heckling corporate executives who praise AI during their commencement ceremonies, and the only people who seem to be genuinely surprised by this are the executives themselves.In a procession of viral videos, 2026 commencement speakers like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt face loud and sustained jeers from students after praising AI and describing the technology as both inevitable and mandatory. The videos have clearly struck a chord among young people entering a bleak job market in an increasingly unstable world.“They deserve everything they’re getting,” Penny Oliver, who recently graduated with a political science degree from George…
Apple’s latest MacBook Air M5 model is considered by Stuff to be the best MacBook laptop for the vast majority of people, so we love seeing the value for money boosted a little more. As part of its Memorial Day tech sales, Amazon is knocking $100 off the MacBook Air M5, bringing the price down to $999. This is for the 13-inch model with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage. Today lowest price is available on the Sky Blue variant of the laptop, while the other colours are around $50 off. That’s 9% off in total, off the…
Firefox is getting a drastic visual overhaul with a redesigned Settings section that will make it easier to find and use privacy settings, including the switch for turning off all present and future AI features. Mozilla calls the redesign “Project Nova” and plans to begin rolling it out later this year. It features rounded UI elements throughout, including bubble-like tabs, along with a refreshed, fire-inspired color palette. Mozilla says it’s also updating icons so they’re more visually consistent across light and dark themes.Firefox’s AI features and models aren’t downloaded to your computer unless you choose to use them, even if…
Its name might be dull and uninspired, but the Philips 24B2D5300 Business Monitor brings a novel feature I’ve never seen on a display before: screens on either side. The design will primarily benefit people who are constantly angling their computer screen so those on both sides of a desk can see it, like a car salesperson walking a buyer through configuration options or a doctor conferring with a patient. But there are some potential co-working applications, too.Featuring back-to-back 23.8-inch LCD panels with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 at 120 Hz, the monitor can be connected to one or multiple…
The original Birdie debuted in 2022 with a morbid-but-fun design — an air-quality monitor with a literal canary in a coal mine. When the CO2 in your home hit a certain level, a mechanical bird mounted on your wall would appear to drop dead, then prompt you to open a window to air things out. Once the air quality improved, the bird miraculously came back to life. The new Birdie Pro carries forward that same design and approach, but adds additional sensors providing a more comprehensive analysis of the environment in your home.Birdie Pro is now available through a Kickstarter…
If your summer plans involve spending any time outdoors, whether on the trail or at a pool party, a good portable Bluetooth speaker can go a long way. The latest Sonos Roam is built precisely for those moments, and right now, it’s on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart for $134 ($45 off) for Memorial Day, matching its lowest price to date.The second-gen Roam builds on what made the original such an impressive Bluetooth speaker for its size. Most notably, it’s much easier to use right out of the box. Unlike the first-gen model, which required you to set…
I’m not sure anyone was really asking for an AI guitar pedal. But it was inevitable that someone would build one. One of the first to take the plunge is Polyend, a well-respected music gear maker with a reputation for building niche, idiosyncratic devices. The company has built grooveboxes around old-school trackers and a multi-effect pedal that you can step sequence. So there was at least some hope that if anyone could do an AI effect pedal right, it would be Polyend.Polyend’s Endless is a $299 programmable guitar pedal running an ARM processor. It’s paired with Playground, a number of…
Selling the smart home has been hard. Even Amazon has lost money in the space, despite putting hundreds of millions of Echo devices in people’s homes. Google has also reportedly struggled to turn a profit from its substantial investment in Nest. But now Google is seeing dollar signs in the prospect of selling AI-driven subscriptions in the smart home. And it’s not alone.At Google I/O this week, Google announced it’s expanding its Gemini for Home APIs to allow companies to integrate more of its Gemini-powered smart home features into their own apps. In a blog post, Google’s Ravi Akella, director…
Today I’m talking with Liz Lopatto, who spent the last month covering the Musk v. Altman trial in all its chaos. You’ll hear her describe the courthouse as a “zoo” and explain that there were protests of one kind or another happening outside every day.Both Elon Musk and Sam Altman are big personalities, and people have a lot of feelings about both of them and the AI industry. And in the end… nothing happened! The jury found that Elon had filed his lawsuit after the statute of limitations had run out. You’ll hear Liz explain exactly what’s going on there.Beyond…
The Flipper One is also packed with connectivity including PCIe, SATA, and USB 3.0 interfaces, two ethernet ports, and an M.2 slot that can expand its capabilities with modules that add cellular connectivity, or Flipper Zero functionality like NFC and RFID. Instead of requiring a mouse, the Flipper One’s user interface can be navigated using a built-in D-pad and a collection of customizable buttons, but the team behind it hasn’t finalized the user interface, or even the device itself.Although it was announced today, the Flipper One isn’t available for sale or preorder yet. The reason the company revealed a device…
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is launching a streaming series on Twitch, in which he’ll respond to questions the public have submitted via the chat, Polygon reports. The series is aptly titled “Talk with the People,” and kicks off later today at 4PM ET.“With the launch of ‘Talk with the People’ we’re bringing City Hall to the platforms where New Yorkers already are — speaking directly with the people,” Mamdani told Polygon in a written statement. “By launching the country’s first recurring cross-platform stream hosted by an elected official, where I’ll answer New Yorkers’ questions live on Twitch, we’re…