Author: News Room

Ten years ago Sony introduced the MDR-1000X headphones. They combined noise canceling, good sound, design, and comfort in a way that we hadn’t quite seen before in a set of wireless headphones. (At the time, the Bose QC35 were the closest competitor, but I wasn’t a huge fan of their sound tuning.) The 1000X set off a line of consistently excellent wireless noise-canceling headphones that became the go-to for comparisons — I still have a pair of WH-1000XM4s that hang on the side of my desk. To celebrate the launch of the original, Sony is releasing the 1000X The Collexion.…

In the battle to top our list of the best noise-cancelling headphones a new challenger has just emerged: Sony’s 1000X The Collexion. With a more high-end look than previous entries in the MDR-1000X range, The Collexion also has a higher price to match: €630/£550. That’s £200 more than the standard Sony WH-1000XM6. So what do you get for your hefty chunk of change? Aesthetically they’re a step up from the regular cans: the headband combines textured metal with faux leather, while the smooth ear cups include metal buttons and tiny holes for the noise-cancelling microphones. They’re slightly heavier as a…

One addition that jumped out to me is the ability to use on-device speech recognition for uncaptioned videos, which will be available on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and Apple Vision Pro.Other changes coming later this year will use AI to add more details to VoiceOver’s Image Explorer in descriptions of images (with a warning that they should not be relied on in any number of risky or potentially dangerous situations), and the ability to ask questions about what the camera sees by pressing the Action button. It’s also adding natural language navigation to the Voice Control system, and the…

Apple has brought back PopSockets’ Hikawa Grip and Stand for iPhone, which originally sold out last year. Now, the accessibility-focused MagSafe accessory that’s designed to make iPhones easier and more comfortable to hold has returned, in three funky finishes. The updated versions come in Orange Swirl, Glow Blue, and Speckled Stone, and they’re being sold directly through Apple’s online store for $54.95 / £44.95. Designed by Bailey Hikawa and produced in partnership with PopSockets, the accessory was created specifically with accessibility in mind. Apple describes it as an adaptive MagSafe accessory, developed alongside people living with a wide range of…

Inviting a robot vacuum-mop into your life is a big decision. An autonomous floor-cleaning machine roaming your home is equal parts glorious and intrusive. But if it does its job well, you may forgive it for eating your rug tassel, running over your Apple Watch, smearing strawberry jam across your carpet, or chattering to you in Chinese at 3AM — all things that have happened to me in my six years of testing these things.Over that time, I’ve learned that the best robot vacuum-mop is the one most likely to consistently vacuum and mop your floors with the least intervention.…

Almost exactly two years ago, Microsoft introduced Arm-powered versions of the Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7, with Intel models not ready until more than six months later. This time around Microsoft is refreshing its Surface Pro and Surface Laptop models with Intel’s latest Core Ultra Series 3 processors first, ahead of similar models with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X2 processors later this year.The new Surface Pro 12, or as Microsoft calls it the Surface Pro for Business 13-inch (12th Edition), will be available for businesses today, starting at an eye-watering $1,949.99. The base model will include an Intel Core…

When I first sat in the Strutt EV1, I wasn’t expecting to feel like a passenger in a self-driving Waymo taxi. But that’s exactly what it was. Instead of ferrying me around the roads in an electric car, it was navigating tight corners indoors. It’s an electric wheelchair, but this isn’t like any wheelchair you’ve seen before. It’s more like the self-driving car version of mobility tech, packed with sensors, wrapped in a smart design, and still intuitive enough to just get in and go. At the heart of the EV1 is what Strutt calls the evSense system. It’s kitted…

The Swatch x Audemars Piguet Royal Pop collection is one of the most unexpected watch collaborations in recent memory. Eight pocket watches, each built around a hand-wound SISTEM51 movement and dressed in Bioceramic. They take direct design cues from AP’s iconic Royal Oak, right down to the octagonal bezel and eight hexagonal screws. The result is playful, bold, and genuinely difficult to rank (that’s why this list is essentially my personal preference). Every model packs a tapisserie dial, sapphire crystal, anti-reflective coating, and a swappable calfskin lanyard. There are two styles, Savonnette, with the crown at 3 o’clock, and Lépine,…

Gemini has a creep problem.A few years ago, that little sparkle icon started showing up in all of our Google apps. Gemini in your inbox! Gemini in your Google Drive! It was slow at first, and easy enough to tune out, but something has changed in the past few months. Gemini is creeping. It’s showing up in all kinds of places at a relentless pace, and personally, it’s starting to really cheese me off.The AI-everywhere fatigue is familiar to anyone who has ever used Windows 11. Microsoft went absolutely bananas putting Copilot shortcuts onto every surface it could find, to…

Apple’s current iPhone Pro design might only be a temporary stopgap. A new leak claims that the tech giant is still actively developing more exotic materials for future iPhone Pro frames – including the long-rumoured liquid meta that it’s reportedly been exploring for well over a decade. According to leaker Instant Digital on Weibo, Apple’s rumoured shift away from titanium and towards aluminium on the iPhone 17 Pro may not be permanent. Instead, the company is supposedly continuing to experiment with both liquid metal and improved titanium alloys designed to solve some of titanium’s thermal limitations. While titanium helped make…

Google’s annual developer conference has arrived. We’re expecting plenty of updates to Gemini, Search, and every other product that Google has stuffed AI inside of. The keynote kicks off later today — here’s what to expect.When Google I/O will happen and where you can watch itGoogle I/O starts at 10AM PT / 1PM ET today, May 19th, with a keynote presentation, which will be livestreamed on Google’s YouTube channel and on the Google I/O site. Unlike last week’s Android Show, the I/O keynote is usually pretty long, around two hours, so plan accordingly if you’re hoping to watch the whole…

If you’re browsing for a new smartwatch, you might want to hold off on any major decisions. New rumours suggest that the upcoming Apple Watch Ultra 4 could land with a major redesign and upgraded blood pressure monitoring features. According to DigiTimes, Apple is working on a new high blood pressure notification system that uses the optical heart-rate sensor to analyse how blood vessels respond to each heartbeat. If the watch detects abnormal patterns associated with hypertension, it could then alert the wearer. The feature is reportedly under FDA review. Apple already introduced Hypertension Notifications with watchOS 26 and recent…