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Anime fans won't be getting any respite from the streaming service price hikes that now feel inevitable on every platform every couple of years. Crunchyroll <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=b79b93c2-acb6-4dce-94f0-adb51960a04a&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=2d14f2d4-5ee4-49b3-b257-5f998eba75f8&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Crunchyroll&linkText=announced&custData=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&signature=AQAAAetmpX6c33XMispcczkD-Tjgq1p6rBCHKENQbo8K_RXa&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crunchyroll.com%2Fnews%2Fannouncements%2F2026%2F2%2F2%2Fcrunchyroll-updates-membership-pricing-to-give-fans-more-of-what-they-love%3Fsrsltid%3DAfmBOopffbGxIpGpMTLy469qC6Ajt3rf7ye5Mzv9K0rxAnuROhhTQQfG" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Crunchyroll;elmt:;cpos:1;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.crunchyroll.com/news/announcements/2026/2/2/crunchyroll-updates-membership-pricing-to-give-fans-more-of-what-they-love?srsltid=AfmBOopffbGxIpGpMTLy469qC6Ajt3rf7ye5Mzv9K0rxAnuROhhTQQfG">announced</a> today that it will be increasing the monthly costs for all its plans by $2. That means the Fan tier will now run you $10 a month, the Mega Fan Tier is $14 a month and the Ultimate Fan Tier is $18 a month. The platform <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/crunchyroll-offline-viewing-subscription-tiers-145000647.html" data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1">introduced</a> its Mega Fan and Ultimate Fan options in 2020, with both at long last giving viewers an option to watch shows offline. The silver lining in today's price changes is that the Fan members are getting the same offline viewing option, although it's limited to one device. Crunchyroll is further enticing the people who might now be more interested in the Fan level by offering a discount on the annual plan for that tier; you can get a year's access for a limited time for $67. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/crunchyroll-increases-prices-for-all-anime-streaming-plans-234231265.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

Moltbook, the AI social network, exposed human credentials due to vibe-coded security flaw

Feb 2, 2026

Elon Musk's SpaceX has acquired his AI company, xAI

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has acquired Musk’s xAI, the companies <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.spacex.com/updates#xai-joins-spacex" data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1">announced</a>. The merger will “form the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world’s foremost real-time information and free speech platform,” Musk wrote in an update.The AI company that right now is best known for its <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/grok-generated-an-estimated-3-million-sexualized-images--including-23000-of-children--over-11-days-175053250.html" data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1">CSAM-generating chatbot</a> might seem like a strange fit for a rocket company. But SpaceX is key to Musk’s latest scheme to build AI data centers in space. In his update, Musk wrote that “global electricity demand for AI simply cannot be met with terrestrial solutions” and that moving the resource-intensive operations to space is “the only logical solution.” SpaceX just days ago filed an application with the FCC to create an “<a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/science/space/spacex-wants-to-launch-a-constellation-of-a-million-satellites-to-power-ai-needs-175607771.html" data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1">orbital data center</a>” by launching a million new satellites.Musk also claimed that, eventually, space-based data centers will enable other advancements in space travel. “The capabilities we unlock by making space-based data centers a reality will fund and enable self-growing bases on the Moon, an entire civilization on Mars and ultimately expansion to the Universe.” Notably, it’s not the first time Musk has made lofty claims about Mars. He predicted <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/2017-09-29-space-x-mars-bfr-elon-musk.html" data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1">in 2017</a> that SpaceX would send crewed missions to Mars by 2024. This also isn’t the first time Musk has acquired one of his own companies. He <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/social-media/xai-elon-musks-ai-company-just-purchased-x-elon-musks-social-media-company-221503759.html" data-i13n="slk:merged xAI and X;cpos:5;pos:1">merged xAI and X</a> last year, which means SpaceX now owns the social network Musk bought in 2022. And he recently announced that Tesla was investing <a target="_blank" class="no-affiliate-link link" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/28/tesla-to-invest-2-billion-in-xai-elon-musks-openai-competitor.html" data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;slk:$2 billion;cpos:6;pos:1">$2 billion</a> into xAI. SpaceX is planning to go public later this year in an initial public offering (IPO) that could value the company at more than $1 trillion, <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-02/elon-musk-s-spacex-said-to-combine-with-xai-ahead-of-mega-ipo" data-i13n="slk:according to;cpos:7;pos:1">according to</a> Bloomberg, which notes that SpaceX has also “discussed a possible merger with Tesla.”This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/elon-musks-spacex-has-acquired-his-ai-company-xai-221617040.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

Ubisoft fires employee who publicly criticized its RTO plan

Ubisoft continues to raise eyebrows around how it is treating employees as it attempts a business overhaul. David Michaud-Cromp, a level design team lead at Ubisoft Montreal, said last week that he was <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://kotaku.com/ubisoft-punishes-developer-union-strike-return-to-office-2000663771" data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1">suspended</a> for three days without pay after voicing opposition to the company's return to office mandate. Today, Michaud-Cromp <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=6deefbf2-941b-4156-9f41-a61ebb50d13d&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=11e7f272-fc8b-4167-bc55-096c33c2e509&featureId=text-link&merchantName=LinkedIn&linkText=posted&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5saW5rZWRpbi5jb20vcG9zdHMvZGF2aWQtbWljaGF1ZC1jcm9tcC0xMDY2ODAzNV90b2RheS1pLXdhcy10ZXJtaW5hdGVkLWJ5LXViaXNvZnQtZWZmZWN0aXZlLWFjdGl2aXR5LTc0MjQxMzMwODMwNTE5Nzg3NTctRjJoby8iLCJjb250ZW50VXVpZCI6IjExZTdmMjcyLWZjOGItNDE2Ny1iYzU1LTA5NmMzM2MyZTUwOSIsIm9yaWdpbmFsVXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGlua2VkaW4uY29tL3Bvc3RzL2RhdmlkLW1pY2hhdWQtY3JvbXAtMTA2NjgwMzVfdG9kYXktaS13YXMtdGVybWluYXRlZC1ieS11Ymlzb2Z0LWVmZmVjdGl2ZS1hY3Rpdml0eS03NDI0MTMzMDgzMDUxOTc4NzU3LUYyaG8vIn0&signature=AQAAASWkyz-XO-ajVFlb-8GlqOcifn5Jqvg0AASrov_I_3Wi&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fposts%2Fdavid-michaud-cromp-10668035_today-i-was-terminated-by-ubisoft-effective-activity-7424133083051978757-F2ho%2F" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:LinkedIn;elmt:;cpos:2;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/david-michaud-cromp-10668035_today-i-was-terminated-by-ubisoft-effective-activity-7424133083051978757-F2ho/">posted</a> on LinkedIn that he has been fired. "I was terminated by Ubisoft, effective immediately," he wrote. "This was not my decision."A spokesperson for Ubisoft gave <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://kotaku.com/ubisoft-montreal-lead-fired-david-michaud-cromp-work-from-home-linkedin-2000665081" data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1">Kotaku</a> the following statement regarding Michaud-Cromp's dismissal: "Sharing feedback or opinions respectfully does not lead to a dismissal. We have a clear Code of Conduct that outlines our shared expectations for working together safely and respectfully, which employees review and sign each year. When that is breached, our established procedures apply, including an escalation of measures depending on the nature, severity, and repetition of the breach." We've reached out to the company for additional confirmation and comment. This is the latest in a sequence of bad press Ubisoft has faced regarding its workforce. Shortly after many employees at Ubisoft Halifax unionized, the parent company <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ubisoft-is-shutting-down-a-studio-16-days-after-it-unionized-183000983.html" data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1">shut down</a> the studio. In announcing the closure, Ubisoft said the move was part of a broader cost-cutting endeavor across its operations; it shut down a support studio and cut more jobs <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ubisoft-shuts-down-a-support-studio-and-lays-off-185-workers-191048262.html" data-i13n="cpos:5;pos:1">later in January</a>, with even more layoffs <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ubisoft-proposes-even-more-layoffs-after-last-weeks-studio-closures-and-game-cancellations-192703241.html" data-i13n="cpos:6;pos:1">proposed</a>. Most recently, unions representing other Ubisoft workers called for <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ubisoft-173241918.html" data-i13n="cpos:7;pos:1">a three-day strike</a> in response to the "penny-pinching and worsening our working conditions" they alleged of the company's management.All these issues could all be coincidental timing. But if so, they're coincidences that don't reflect favorably on Ubisoft.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ubisoft-fires-employee-who-publicly-criticized-its-rto-plan-220913747.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

France might seek restrictions on VPN use in campaign to keep minors off social media

France may take additional steps to prevent minors from accessing social media platforms. As its government advances a proposed ban on social media use for anyone under age 15, some leaders are already looking to add further restrictions. During an <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VfMKmeHnrM" data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1">appearance</a> on public broadcast service Franceinfo, Minister Delegate for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Affairs Anne Le Hénanff said <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/vpn/best-vpn-130004396.html" data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1">VPNs</a> might be the next target. "If [this legislation] allows us to protect a very large majority of children, we will continue. And VPNs are the next topic on my list," she <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/vpns-are-next-on-my-list-france-set-to-evaluate-vpn-use-following-social-media-ban-for-under-15s" data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1">said</a>.A virtual private network would potentially allow French citizens younger than 15 to circumnavigate the social media ban. We've already seen VPN's experience <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/vpn/vpns-are-booming-in-the-uk-after-age-restriction-laws-but-free-options-carry-big-risks-060036636.html" data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1">a popularity spike in the UK</a> last year after similar laws were passed over age-gating content. However, a VPN also offers benefits for online privacy, and introducing age verification requirements where your personal data must be submitted negates a large part of these services' appeal. The French social media ban is still a work in progress. France's National Assembly <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/frances-national-assembly-debates-banning-under-15s-social-media-2026-01-26/" data-i13n="cpos:5;pos:1">voted in favor</a> of the restrictions last week with a result of 116-23, moving it ahead for discussion in the country's Senate. While a single comment doesn't mean that France will in fact ban VPNs for any demographic, it does point to the direction some of the country's leaders want to take. Critics responded to Le Hénanff's statements with worry that these attempts at protective measures were veering into an authoritarian direction. The actions in France echo several other legislative pushes around the world aimed at reducing children and teens' access to social media and other potentially sensitive content online. The US had seen <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/the-year-age-verification-laws-came-for-the-open-internet-130000979.html" data-i13n="cpos:6;pos:1">25 state-level laws</a> for age verification introduced in the past two years, which has created a new set of concerns around users' privacy and personal data, particularly when there has been no attempt to standardize how that information will be collected or protected. When data breaches at large corporations are already all too common, it's hard to trust that the individual sites and services that suddenly need to build an age verification process won't be an easy target for hacks.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/france-might-seek-restrictions-on-vpn-use-in-campaign-to-keep-minors-off-social-media-205308716.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

Firefox will soon offer a way to block all of its generative AI features

Like practically every other tech company under the sun, Mozilla has been <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/mozilla-will-add-an-ai-window-to-firefox-225032453.html" data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1">jamming generative AI features into its products</a>. The organization has now acknowledged that not everyone wants things like <s>plagiarism machines</s> <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/firefox-starts-letting-you-use-ai-chatbots-in-the-sidebar-144218734.html" data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1">chatbots in the Firefox sidebar</a>, so it’s giving you the option to turn off all of that. On February 24 (or earlier in Firefox Nightly builds), <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/ai-controls/" data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1">Mozilla will roll out Firefox 148</a>, which will include an AI controls section in the desktop browser settings. From here, you’ll be able to block current and future generative AI features, or only enable select tools. <div><div style="left:0;width:100%;height:0;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iD4LspntEmI?rel=0" style="top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;position:absolute;border:0;" allowfullscreen scrolling="no" data-embed-domain="youtube.com" data-provider-name="youtube"></iframe></div></div>At the jump, you’ll have the option to disable (or enable) chatbots in the sidebar, automated translations and alt text generation for PDFs. You’ll also be able to nix a tool called AI-enhanced tab grouping (which offers suggestions of related tabs and group names), as well as <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/the-war-on-links-escalates-with-firefoxs-experimental-ai-previews-123059735.html" data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1">webpage previews</a> that display “key points" before you actually click on a link. If you’d prefer to get rid of all of these — and for Firefox to not bother you with pop-ups and notifications about current and upcoming AI features — just make sure the "Block AI enhancements" toggle is on. Perhaps Mozilla has come to realize that, rather than having AI cruft soaking up resources and causing apps to bloat, what many people actually want is a fast, secure and streamlined web browser. At the very least, giving users a way to opt out of features they don’t want is a positive step. Now then, Google, about AI Overviews...This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/firefox-will-soon-offer-a-way-to-block-all-of-its-generative-ai-features-203132958.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

Sony’s flagship WF-1000XM6 earbuds have been leaked on a retail site

Sony's long-anticipated flagship WF-1000XM6 earbuds have leaked online, <a data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1" href="https://thewalkmanblog.blogspot.com/2026/02/sony-wf-1000xm6-leaked-by-retailer.html"><ins>according to a report by </ins><ins>The Walkman Blog</ins></a> and <a data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1" href="https://www.reddit.com/r/SonyHeadphones/comments/1qtpb0p/wf1000xm6_spotted/"><ins>posts on Reddit</ins></a>. The retailer Power Buy posted a listing for the earbuds, complete with multiple photos and some specs. Let's get to the specs. We don't know a lot, but the listing does suggest the earbuds will boast an IPX4 water-resistance rating and ANC/transparency modes. None of this is all that surprising, though we don't have any details regarding the audio drivers or anything like that. <figure><img src="https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2026-02/417d7370-006a-11f1-bfae-534ae38d87ac" data-crop-orig-src="https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2026-02/417d7370-006a-11f1-bfae-534ae38d87ac" style="height:1258px;width:1262px;" alt="Earbuds and a case." data-uuid="a7b9a2ca-9abf-3c59-a7b2-861073a8ea0d"><figcaption></figcaption><div class="photo-credit">The Walkman Blog / Power Buy / Sony</div></figure> We do know what they look like, assuming the listing is accurate. There are two colorways, black and white, with a pill-shaped design that differs from the previous iterations. The case looks like a standard earbud case. One interesting design aspect is that the eartips are slightly bigger than with previous models. This could indicate a larger air channel, which would translate to an increased bass response. Earbuds tend to struggle with bass, so this could be a nifty little upgrade. However, that's conjecture and we won't know more until Sony does its own official drop. It's been well over two years since the company released the <a data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/sony-wf-1000xm5-earbuds-review-striving-for-perfection-160023581.html"><ins>WF-1000XM5 earbuds</ins></a>, so the refresh is long overdue.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/sonys-flagship-wf-1000xm6-earbuds-have-been-leaked-on-a-retail-site-194146960.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

Samsung Galaxy A17 5G review: A respectable and affordable Android option

Buying a <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/best-cheap-phones-130017793.html" data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1">good budget phone</a> can be a challenge. High-end handsets continue to get more features, but on the other end of the spectrum, there are only so many things you can skimp on before a device becomes too compromised. With the Galaxy A17, Samsung is trying to balance both sides of that equation with something that sports a solid design, a bright screen, decent cameras and respectable battery life for just $200. And despite some flaws, the company has succeeded at making a capable phone that fits into almost <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/best-cheap-android-phone-160029703.html" data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1">every budget</a>. <core-commerce data-type="product-list" id="dc2a99c3-8018-4fc4-8189-6c8cffb714f9" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-High-Res-Charging-Expandable-Manufacturer/dp/B0FXY1DZ78/?th=1"></core-commerce> <h2 id="jump-link-design-and-display">Design and display</h2> The Galaxy A17 does a good job of demonstrating how all plastics aren't the same. Despite having a polycarbonate frame and back, the phone never feels cheap. Everything from its buttons to its camera module feels nice and tight. The optical image stabilization system used for its rear shooters rattles, though that’s something even $1,000 flagships suffer from, so it’s not a big deal. Some small concessions for cost savings include a teardrop cutout for its front selfie cam and a small chin beneath its display, but considering its price, they're very forgivable. There's also only a single mono speaker and instead of an in-screen fingerprint sensor, Samsung built one into the power button on its side. Though for some, the latter might actually be a bonus. <figure> <img src="https://d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net/images/user-uploaded/a17-display.jpg" data-crop-orig-src="https://d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net/images/user-uploaded/a17-display.jpg" style="height:1200px;width:1920px;" alt="The Galaxy A17's 6.7-inch OLED display is one of the phone's best components thanks to solid brightness and a 90Hz refresh rate. " data-uuid="174fe548-1b56-4864-8687-3c1fcc7cb02f"> <figcaption> The Galaxy A17's 6.7-inch OLED display is one of the phone's best components thanks to solid brightness and a 90Hz refresh rate. </figcaption> <div class="photo-credit"> Sam Rutherford for Engadget </div> </figure> Meanwhile, one thing the A17 has that you don't get on high-end handsets anymore is a microSD card slot (that's shared with its SIM tray) for expandable storage. This gives you a cheap way to increase the phone's base 128GB of space and considering how rare this is nowadays, it’s another win for people looking for a truly affordable device.  The Galaxy A17's screen is also surprisingly nice for its price, as it sports a 6.7-inch OLED display with up to 800 nits of brightness. Granted, its refresh rate tops out at 90Hz instead of the 120Hz you get on more expensive fare. But once again, considering how much it costs, I'm not complaining. Especially when you remember that base iPhones were still saddled with 60Hz panels as recently as 2024.  <h2 id="jump-link-performance">Performance</h2> One area where budget phones often struggle is performance because skimping on RAM or the processor can save manufacturers a lot of money. And while the Galaxy A17 is generally fine considering its price bracket, I really wish Samsung had opted for a slightly newer chip. The phone comes with just 4GB of RAM (though there are slightly pricier versions with more), 128GB of onboard storage and an Exynos 1330 SoC, the latter of which is nearly three years old.  <figure> <img src="https://d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net/images/user-uploaded/a17-rear-cam.jpg" data-crop-orig-src="https://d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net/images/user-uploaded/a17-rear-cam.jpg" style="height:1200px;width:1920px;" alt="The Galaxy A17 comes with three rear cameras, but its really more like two because one of those is a 2MP macro cam. " data-uuid="27b59e89-2d47-4622-b5b3-3b87164608ca"> <figcaption> The Galaxy A17 comes with three rear cameras, but its really more like two because one of those is a 2MP macro cam. </figcaption> <div class="photo-credit"> Sam Rutherford for Engadget </div> </figure> At first, I was really worried because during the initial setup, the phone was a laggy, stuttery mess. Thankfully, after signing in, giving the phone some time to download updates in the background and making sure all of its apps were up to date, performance improved significantly. To be clear, this thing still isn't a speed demon and when you're multitasking or quickly switching between heavy apps, you may notice some slowdown. I also wish touch input felt a bit more responsive because sometimes when you tap an icon, there's a small delay before anything happens. But thankfully, it's relatively minor, and in most situations, the phone is snappy enough. <h2 id="jump-link-cameras">Cameras</h2> The A17 comes with a 13-megapixel selfie camera and three rear shooters, though in practice it's really more like two because one of those is a 2MP macro cam, which doesn't get much use unless you take a lot of up-close photos. That said, the phone takes better pictures than you might expect given its price. In well-lit conditions, both its 50MP main and 5MP ultrawide cams don't give you much to complain about. Images look sharp and sport vivid colors. <core-slideshow data-slideshowid="f68e1783-93dc-4d57-b122-983165aaa7cb"/> However, in low-light situations, there's an obvious difference in quality between the A17 and more expensive midrange phones like <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/google-pixel-9a-review-basic-in-just-the-right-way-130050005.html" data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1">Pixel 9a.</a> In a shot of some fruit in my dimly lit kitchen, the A17's pic looks soft and features washed-out colors compared to what Google's phone produced. Then, when I went outside and snapped a photo of a car still buried after the recent snowstorm, textures on the slush in the road, along with various highlights and shadows looked worse in the A17's images. So while the phone can hold its own, camera quality is still one of the biggest reasons you might want to consider upgrading to a more expensive handset. <h2 id="jump-link-battery-life">Battery life</h2> <figure> <img src="https://d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net/images/user-uploaded/A17-bottom.jpg" data-crop-orig-src="https://d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net/images/user-uploaded/A17-bottom.jpg" style="height:1200px;width:1920px;" alt="The bottom of the Galaxy A17 features the phone's USB-C port and its single, mono speaker. " data-uuid="2e7f7bd5-29ab-413d-b653-b0fa14e8ef36"> <figcaption> The bottom of the Galaxy A17 features the phone's USB-C port and its single, mono speaker. </figcaption> <div class="photo-credit"> Sam Rutherford for Engadget </div> </figure> For a phone with a 5,000mAh battery and a low-power chip, the Galaxy A17 didn't last quite as long as I expected. On our local video rundown test, it lasted just over 23 hours (23:08), which is decent, but also five hours less than the Pixel 9a (28:04). On the other hand, its wired charging speed of 25 watts is more than enough. Just don't be surprised when you plop it on a wireless charging pad and nothing happens because the phone doesn't support that.  <h2 id="jump-link-wrap-up">Wrap-up</h2> If you are hard-capped at $200, the Samsung Galaxy A17 is a surprisingly impressive device. It's got a solid build, decent cameras with a handful of different lenses, respectable battery life and even a built-in microSD card slot for extra storage. You even get six years of OS and security updates, which is significantly longer than almost all of its similarly-priced rivals. And while its performance could be smoother, it's not laggy enough to get truly bothered about on a phone this affordable.  <figure> <img src="https://d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net/images/user-uploaded/a17-back.jpg" data-crop-orig-src="https://d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net/images/user-uploaded/a17-back.jpg" style="height:1200px;width:1920px;" alt="Even though the Galaxy A17 is made out of plastic, the phone still doesn't feel cheap. " data-uuid="6dbdbdd1-ab33-4d8a-833b-4c109aadf623"> <figcaption> Even though the Galaxy A17 is made out of plastic, the phone still doesn't feel cheap. </figcaption> <div class="photo-credit"> Sam Rutherford for Engadget </div> </figure> For those with wiggle room in their gadget allowance, I would seriously consider looking at a version with 8GB of RAM, which is <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0FNGVYRVQ&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=5abed558-5a4f-43de-9287-4d9d1a52ad53&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=just+%2430+more&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL1NhbXN1bmctVW5sb2NrZWQtQ29tcGF0aWJsZS1TTS1BMTc2Qi1EUy9kcC9CMEZOR1ZZUlZRLz90YWc9Z2RndDBjLTIwIiwiY29udGVudFV1aWQiOiI1YWJlZDU1OC01YTRmLTQzZGUtOTI4Ny00ZDlkMWE1MmFkNTMiLCJvcmlnaW5hbFVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFtYXpvbi5jb20vU2Ftc3VuZy1VbmxvY2tlZC1Db21wYXRpYmxlLVNNLUExNzZCLURTL2RwL0IwRk5HVllSVlEvIiwiZHluYW1pY0NlbnRyYWxUcmFja2luZ0lkIjp0cnVlLCJzaXRlSWQiOiJ1cy1lbmdhZGdldCIsInBhZ2VJZCI6IjFwLWF1dG9saW5rIiwiZmVhdHVyZUlkIjoidGV4dC1saW5rIn0&signature=AQAAARtZbBrhmMDDGMy-sDhMx-FwslL2-KqPSjpyoMkbdivS&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FSamsung-Unlocked-Compatible-SM-A176B-DS%2Fdp%2FB0FNGVYRVQ%2F" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:4;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Unlocked-Compatible-SM-A176B-DS/dp/B0FNGVYRVQ/">just $30 more</a>. Alternatively, the Pixel 9a remains my favorite Android phone when it comes to value for money and it’s $399 (down from its launch price of $499). But if money is tight, the Galaxy A17 delivers everything you need without blowing up your budget. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/samsung-galaxy-a17-5g-review-a-respectable-and-affordable-android-option-190000154.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

ASUS ROG made a gaming headset for audiophile nerds

ASUS ROG just announced the <a data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:;elmt:;cpos:1;pos:1" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=0ee93172-2c46-46cf-9032-6f1aa2faf4db&featureId=text-link&linkText=Kithara+gaming+headset&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3JvZy5hc3VzLmNvbS9oZWFkc2V0cy1hdWRpby9oZWFkc2V0cy8zLTVtbS1oZWFkc2V0cy9yb2cta2l0aGFyYS8iLCJjb250ZW50VXVpZCI6IjBlZTkzMTcyLTJjNDYtNDZjZi05MDMyLTZmMWFhMmZhZjRkYiIsIm9yaWdpbmFsVXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly9yb2cuYXN1cy5jb20vaGVhZHNldHMtYXVkaW8vaGVhZHNldHMvMy01bW0taGVhZHNldHMvcm9nLWtpdGhhcmEvIn0&signature=AQAAAQDgPujBGHt4EcqcQd1QjUq7UUmvd8RfMsDZlKQbQpqn&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Frog.asus.com%2Fheadsets-audio%2Fheadsets%2F3-5mm-headsets%2Frog-kithara%2F" class="rapid-with-clickid" data-original-link="https://rog.asus.com/headsets-audio/headsets/3-5mm-headsets/rog-kithara/">Kithara gaming headset</a>, which is a device intended to bring "audiophile-grade sound" to gaming. It was developed in conjunction with <a data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/2017-01-11-teaching-an-uninterested-colleague-about-headphones.html">manufacturer HiFiMan</a>, a company that specializes in <a data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1" href="https://hifiman.com/products/category/3">high-end audio devices</a>. The Kithara is the company's first open-back planar magnetic gaming headset. ROG says it was designed to please gamers who "demand absolute clarity, precision and realism." The headphones feature 100mm planar magnetic drivers that have been "tuned specifically for gaming." <div id="e395c14b0a4948ef8c9cd9322ceb32af"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2FuiY-1WWDc?si=DXDA65DuiJNz9Do6" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div> The company says this results in a wide frequency response, low distortion and a "level of detail that reveals subtle positional cues such as footsteps, reloads and distance movement." ROG boasts that these audio cues remain distinct even during moments of chaotic gameplay, potentially making the headphones a great choice for competitive gamers. The open-back design allows for clear separation across bass, mids and treble, which should also make the headphones great for listening to music. It features a full-band boom microphone with a high signal-to-noise ratio. There are separate signal paths for audio and microphone inputs, which significantly reduces crosstalk. <figure><img src="https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2026-02/1423dbe0-0064-11f1-bbcf-05597ffed6e5" data-crop-orig-src="https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2026-02/1423dbe0-0064-11f1-bbcf-05597ffed6e5" style="height:982px;width:1514px;" alt="The stuff that comes in the box." data-uuid="31e133a6-0f03-3838-957e-814031e0ea6f"><figcaption></figcaption><div class="photo-credit">ASUS ROG</div></figure> The headphones have been built for maximum versatility, so there's a balanced headphone cable with swappable plugs. They support various connection types, including 3.5mm, 4.4mm and 6.3mm. They also ship with a USB-C to dual 3.5mm adapter. These are gaming headphones, so comfort is also a priority. The metal frame features an adjustable fit and there's a multi-layer padded headband and two sets of interchangeable ear cushions. The ROG Kithara headphones are available now and cost $300.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/asus-rog-made-a-gaming-headset-for-audiophile-nerds-184737555.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

OpenAI brings its Codex coding app to Mac, with new multi-agent abilities included

Since last spring, OpenAI has <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://chatgpt.com/features/codex/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=paid_search&utm_campaign=GOOG_M_SEM_GBR_Codex_TEM_BAU_ACQ_PER_MIX_ALL_NAMER_CA_EN_111325&c_id=23224835927&c_agid=188410099575&c_crid=782256994950&c_kwid=%7Bkeywordid%7D&c_ims=&c_pms=9198201&c_nw=g&c_dvc=c&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23224835927&gclid=CjwKCAiAs4HMBhBJEiwACrfNZW4TMqMJP6cw8cNDyPyBXGdRLfqIKcHjOjnILLeSvLlD-2gFJ0i1_BoCZqoQAvD_BwE" data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1">offered Codex</a>. What started life as the company's response to <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/anthropics-new-claude-model-can-think-both-fast-and-slow-203307140.html" data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1">Claude Code</a> is becoming <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://openai.com/index/introducing-the-codex-app/" data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1">something more sophisticated</a> with the release of a new dedicated macOS app. At its most basic form, Codex is a programming agent capable of writing code for users, but now it can also manage multiple AI assistants that can work together to complete more complex tasks.OpenAI gives an example of how this could work in practice. The company used Codex to create a Mario Kart-like racing game, complete with a selection of different playable cars, eight tracks and a collection of powerups players can use against the competition. For a single AI agent, generating a game from scratch, with all the needed visual assets, would be a tough ask, but Codex was able to complete the task because it could delegate the work of making the game to different models with complementary capabilities. For example, it turned to <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/chatgpt-image-generation-is-now-faster-and-better-at-following-tweaks-180000750.html" data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1">GPT Image</a> for the visual assets, while a separate model simultaneously coded the web game. "It took on the roles of designer, game developer and QA tester to validate its work by actually playing the game," OpenAI says of the process. If that sounds complicated, OpenAI has tried to make it more approachable with a section of the app titled Skills. The feature bundles “instructions, resources, and scripts so Codex can reliably connect to tools, run workflows, and complete tasks according to your team’s preferences," the company explains. "The Codex app includes a dedicated interface to create and manage skills. You can explicitly ask Codex to use specific skills, or let it automatically use them based on the task at hand."As you might imagine, Codex can also automate repetitive tasks. A dedicated Automations section of the app allows you to schedule tasks, which the software will complete in the background. "At OpenAI, we’ve been using Automations to handle the repetitive but important tasks, like daily issue triage, finding and summarizing CI failures, generating daily release briefs, checking for bugs, and more," the company said. The release of the Codex macOS app comes as AI startups explore what a group of AI agents working in parallel can accomplish. At the start of the year, Anysphere, the company behind Cursor, <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://cursor.com/blog/scaling-agents" data-i13n="cpos:5;pos:1">found</a> it was possible to build a working web browser from scratch using such an approach, though it did encounter problems along the way. For a limited time, OpenAI is making Codex available to ChatGPT Free and <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-is-bringing-ads-to-chatgpt-192831449.html" data-i13n="cpos:6;pos:1">Go users</a> so they can see what's possible with this new software. At the same time, the company is doubling rates for Plus and Pro subscribers. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-brings-its-codex-coding-app-to-mac-with-new-multi-agent-abilities-included-183103262.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

A developer turned Wikipedia into a social media-style feed

While it's important to stay informed about what's going on in the world, endlessly scrolling through your social media feeds and absorbing what's likely to be a largely negative influx of information can't be great for your mental wellbeing. Perhaps with an eye on stopping you from doomscrolling, developer Lyra Rebane created <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://xikipedia.org/" data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1">Xikipedia</a>, a social media-style feed of <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/wikimedia-says-ai-bots-and-summaries-are-hurting-wikipedias-traffic-134331033.html" data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1">Wikipedia</a> entries.The web app algorithmically <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://bsky.app/profile/rebane2001.bsky.social/post/3mdtj5cc7pk2b" data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1">displays info</a> from Simple Wikipedia. "It is made as a demonstration of how even a basic non-[machine learning] algorithm with no data from other users can quickly learn what you engage with to suggest you more similar content," the Xikipedia landing page reads. "No data is collected or shared here, the algorithm runs locally and the data disappears once you refresh or close the tab."You can opt to see entries from certain categories (including custom ones) and you can like “posts,” each of which is a summary of the relevant Simple Wikipedia entry. Liking a post makes it more likely for posts from the same category, parent categories and linked articles to appear in your feed, <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://bsky.app/profile/rebane2001.bsky.social/post/3mdtjztjn4s2h" data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1">Rebane explained</a>.You can click or tap on a post to visit the full article. It's important to note that, since Xikipedia pulls text and images from random articles, you'll probably see some NSFW material if you scroll for long enough, so be warned. You'll also likely need to wait a beat for Xikipedia to load its 40MB of data.As someone who has <a target="_blank" class="link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random" data-i13n="cpos:5;pos:1">a bookmark</a> that takes me to a random Wikipedia article whenever I click it, I love the idea of Xikipedia. The Simple English Wikipedia has more than 278,000 articles, so there are hundreds of thousands of posts available to scroll through. However, it doesn’t seem to be updated as often as the main version of Wikipedia. The discography section of one musician's page I ended up on was missing their two most recent albums. Still, it's worth treating this like Wikipedia proper: as a starting point for discovering new things (sort of in the tradition of StumbleUpon).This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/a-developer-turned-wikipedia-into-a-social-media-style-feed-174924280.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

Grok, which maybe stopped undressing women without their consent, still undresses men

It looks like Grok is still being gross. Elon Musk says his chatbot stopped making sexualized images without a person's consent, but <a data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1" href="https://www.theverge.com/report/872062/grok-still-undressing-men"><ins>The Verge</ins><ins> recently discovered</ins></a> this is not entirely true. It maybe (and I say maybe) <a data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/x-says-grok-will-no-longer-edit-images-of-real-people-into-bikinis-231430257.html"><ins>stopped undressing women</ins></a> without their consent, but this doesn't seem to apply to men. A reporter with the organization ran some tests with Grok and found that the bot "readily undresses men and is still churning out intimate images on demand." He confirmed this with images of himself, asking Grok to remove clothing from uploaded photos. It performed this task for free on the Grok app, via the chatbot interface on X and via the standalone website. The website didn't even require an account to digitally alter images. The company recently said it has taken steps to "prevent the Grok account from allowing the editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis." However, the reporter had no problem getting the chatbot to put him in "a variety of bikinis." It also generated images of the subject in fetish gear and in a "parade of provocative sexual positions." It even generated a "naked companion" for the reporter to, uh, interact with. He suggested that Grok took the initiative to generate genitalia, which was not asked for and was visible through mesh underwear. The reporter said that "Grok rarely resisted" any prompts, though requests were sometimes censored with a blurred-out image. <div id="1424903c640842cab7e7940ec01e085f"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/s6Vn2nDQz64?si=RaW-pgUZc5BbRIwp" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div> This controversy started several weeks ago when it was discovered that Grok had <a data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/grok-generated-an-estimated-3-million-sexualized-images--including-23000-of-children--over-11-days-175053250.html"><ins>generated millions of sexualized images</ins></a> over a period of 11 days. This includes many nonconsensual deepfakes of actual people and over 23,000 sexualized <a data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/elon-musks-grok-ai-posted-csam-image-following-safeguard-lapses-140521454.html"><ins>images of children</ins></a>. This led to investigations in both <a data-i13n="cpos:5;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/california-is-investigating-grok-over-ai-generated-csam-and-nonconsensual-deepfakes-202029635.html"><ins>California</ins></a> and <a data-i13n="cpos:6;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/the-eu-is-investigating-grok-and-x-over-potentially-illegal-deepfakes-134506678.html"><ins>Europe</ins></a>. X was actually banned in both Indonesia and Malaysia, though the former <a data-i13n="cpos:7;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/indonesia-is-lifting-its-ban-on-grok-but-with-some-conditions-175305634.html"><ins>has since lifted that ban</ins></a>. X claimed it has "implemented technological measures" to stop this sort of thing, but these safeguards <a data-i13n="cpos:8;pos:1" href="https://www.theverge.com/news/861894/grok-still-undressing-in-uk"><ins>have proven to be flimsy</ins></a>. In other words, the adjustments do stop some of the more obvious ways to get Grok to create deepfakes, but there <a data-i13n="cpos:9;pos:1" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/x-grok-ai-imagery-elon-musk-eu-uk-us-regulation/"><ins>are still methods to get around this</ins></a> via creative prompting. It's also worth noting that journalists asking for a comment on the matter get slapped with an autoreply that reads "legacy media lies." Going with the fake news thing in 2026? Yikes.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/grok-which-maybe-stopped-undressing-women-without-their-consent-still-undresses-men-170750752.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

The best board games to gift and play this year

It's become cliche to say that we live in a golden age of board games, but to paraphrase the great stoic philosopher Andy Bernard, it's great to know you're in the good old days before you've left them. Great titles are still coming out by the thousands every year, from crowd-pleasing party games to genre-bending, theme-heavy Euros. Whether the gamer in your life is looking for a mind-warping challenge, a fun evening with friends or something in-between, we've got new releases or old favorites they'll love. <h2 id="jump-link-best-board-games-to-gift-and-play">Best board games to gift and play</h2> <core-commerce id="96249bd330374776999995e42ea1570c" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Scorpion-Masqu%C3%A9-Cooperative-Players-Minutes/dp/B0CHD8RCSJ/"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="96e4884ffe1449c6b8d90e8e6453114e" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Quacks-Board-Game-Quedlinburg-Explosions/dp/B0F4SRMRG9"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="cb8f8e14c015468ea6048ebf892811bd" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1507224311"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="5a53ca81e4a74577b6e25db86d9662b1" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/CMYK-Wilmot%CA%BCs-Warehouse-Stories-Remember/dp/B0D9HRZNCR/"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="05d33882325740c59a77fe8323a9bcc6" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Holmes-Consulting-Detective-Irregulars/dp/2370990112/"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="575cd25bae5b478ebb08a72a4e1738ca" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Hasbro-Gaming-Betrayal-Cooperative-Scenarios/dp/B09H23M384/"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="138ed5c291064245b3c81e2faf4ef375" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Stonemaier-Games-STM910-Wingspan-Multi-colored/dp/B07YQ641NQ/?th=1"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="d5360deb0444446e84caccff9cea7775" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/CMYK-Daybreak-Cooperative-Stopping-Pandemic/dp/B0C79QBRMJ/"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="75fe98b7df564b64ab563ebf5b37f6bb" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Asmodee-Azul-Board-Head-Head/dp/B0DT9PV8PL/"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="9ce78ceeb7024b9d9eb4e601a2c21aab" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Dixit-Board-Game-Award-Winning-Storytelling/dp/B09BSP7B7V/"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="d61a465078734ec1b20c2d02d079f3bc" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Matagot-SAS-MTGINI01-Inis-Board/dp/B089Q26FL2/"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="0e4a520e0e7f4696b25809a708adf397" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Rio-Grande-Games-Dominion-2nd/dp/B01LYLIS2U"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="4df9b9d22fb1472db0aec1af20867658" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Capstone-Games-Drafting-Management-Strategy/dp/B09L6FCP9S/"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="4df5b37deb5346ccbc781ac31aa87f76" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.miniaturemarket.com/gang-tak683887.html"></core-commerce> Check out the rest of our <a data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/gifts/">gift ideas</a> here. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-best-board-games-to-gift-and-play-this-year-125529271.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

How to watch the 2026 Super Bowl: Patriots vs. Seahawks channel, start time, where to stream and more

<figure> <img src="https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2026-01/cc347970-fa64-11f0-bade-27b412e6d1e8" data-crop-orig-src="https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2026-01/87a386c0-fa64-11f0-bef7-37149ceace56" style="height:2787px;width:4960px;" alt="DENVER, COLORADO - JANUARY 25: Drake Maye #10 of the New England Patriots leads a huddle during the first quarter of the AFC Championship game against the Denver Broncos at Empower Field At Mile High on January 25, 2026 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Lauren Leigh Bacho/Getty Images)" data-uuid="1ca8cfc9-c53e-3722-8c45-5c0ac433c019" data-crop="height:2787;width:4960;x:56;y:352"> <figcaption> The New England Patriots are headed to the 2026 Super Bowl. (Lauren Leigh Bacho via Getty Images) </figcaption> <div class="photo-credit"> Lauren Leigh Bacho via Getty Images </div> </figure> <a data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1" href="https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/drake-maye-overlooked-tom-brady-013514581.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall">MVP candidate</a> Drake Maye and the New England Patriots face Sam Darnold and the Seattle Seahawks at <a data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1" href="https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/topic/super-bowl/">Super Bowl LX</a>, which will be held at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, CA this year. It's hard to believe we're less than a week away from the championship game, which will be held this Sunday, Feb. 8 with kickoff scheduled for 6:30 p.m. ET. But before we can get to all of that action, we've also got the <a data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1" href="https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/nfl-pro-bowl-schedule-2026-060002677.html">Pro Bowl Games</a> on Tuesday and the <a data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1" href="https://media.nfl.com/news-and-releases/ap-award-finalists-announced--for-2025-nfl-season">NFL Honors</a> on Thursday to get through first. Like all other Sunday Night Football games this season, the championship game will be broadcast on NBC, and will stream live on Peacock. Here's everything you need to know to tune in to Super Bowl LX on February 8, including the game channel, where to stream, and who's performing at halftime. <h2 id="jump-link-how-to-watch-the-los-angeles-chargers-vs-new-england-patriots-this-sunday">How to watch Super Bowl LX</h2> <core-commerce id="6385b01fd93a46e1bead9be2aa70df09" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.peacocktv.com/?"/> <core-commerce id="35e62e3779834329873e9458dc04c1ac" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.directv.com/stream/"/> Date: Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026 Time: 6:30 p.m. ET TV channel: NBC, Telemundo Streaming: Peacock, DirecTV, NFL+ and more <h2 id="jump-link-los-angeles-chargers-vs-new-england-patriots-game-time">2026 Super Bowl game time</h2> The 2026 Super Bowl is set to begin at 6:30 p.m. ET/3:30 p.m. PT on Feb. 8, 2026. <h2 id="jump-link-los-angeles-chargers-vs-new-england-patriots-game-channel">2026 Super Bowl game channel</h2> The 2026 Super Bowl will air on NBC, with a Spanish-language broadcast available on Telemundo.  <h2 id="jump-link-2026-super-bowl-teams">2026 Super Bowl teams:</h2> The New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks will play in the 2026 Super Bowl. <h2 id="jump-link-where-is-the-2026-super-bowl-being-played">Where is the 2026 Super Bowl being played?</h2> The 2026 Super Bowl will be held at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, CA, home of the San Francisco 49ers. <h2 id="jump-link-what-teams-are-playing-in-the-2026-super-bowl">What teams are playing in the 2026 Super Bowl?</h2> The teams for the 2026 Super Bowl will be determined after the AFC and NFC Championship games are played on Sunday, Jan. 25. You can keep tabs on the post-season <a data-i13n="cpos:5;pos:1" href="https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/playoff-bracket/">playoff bracket here</a>. <h2 id="jump-link-how-to-watch-the-los-angeles-chargers-vs-new-england-patriots-game-without-cable">How to watch the 2026 Super Bowl without cable</h2> You can stream NBC and Telemundo on platforms like DirecTV and Hulu + Live TV, both of which are among Engadget's choices for <a data-i13n="cpos:6;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/best-live-tv-streaming-service-133000410.html">best streaming services for live TV</a>. (Note that <a data-i13n="cpos:7;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/missing-nbc-on-fubo-heres-how-to-watch-sunday-night-football-figure-skating-and-more-this-week-014052346.html">Fubo and NBC are currently in the midst of a contract dispute</a> and NBC channels are not available on the platform.) The game will also be streaming on Peacock and on NFL+, though with an NFL+ subscription, you're limited to watching the game on mobile devices.  <core-commerce id="d9b771e8a71a4bb0859d8c7f2cb6a3f3" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.peacocktv.com/"/> <core-commerce id="dab4c414b8fe40b29c2ec2d4ddd242e3" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.directv.com/stream/"/> <core-commerce id="b3c0cc65f0674fd4976ab9e2010d2912" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F542J65B"/> <h2 id="jump-link-who-is-performing-at-the-2026-super-bowl">Who is performing at the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show?</h2> Bad Bunny, who holds the title as the most-streamed artist in the world, will be headlining the 2026 Super Bowl halftime performance. You can expect that show to begin after the second quarter, likely between 8-8:30 p.m. ET. Singer Charlie Puth will also be at the game to perform the National Anthem, Brandi Carlile is scheduled to sing "America The Beautiful," and Coco Jones will perform "Lift Every Voice and Sing." <h2 id="jump-link-">Where to buy tickets to the 2026 Super Bowl: </h2> Tickets to the 2026 Super Bowl are available on third-party resale platforms like StubHub and Gametime.  <a class="athena-button rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=3daa87f2-c6d3-40c7-9637-c8aa7895a6c1&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=f3d4e4b2-2273-433c-87e7-fbfb4424f573&featureId=shopnow-button&merchantName=StubHub&linkText=Find+tickets+on+Stubhub&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5zdHViaHViLmNvbS9uZmwtdGlja2V0cy9ncm91cGluZy8xMjEiLCJjb250ZW50VXVpZCI6ImYzZDRlNGIyLTIyNzMtNDMzYy04N2U3LWZiZmI0NDI0ZjU3MyIsIm9yaWdpbmFsVXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc3R1Ymh1Yi5jb20vbmZsLXRpY2tldHMvZ3JvdXBpbmcvMTIxIn0&signature=AQAAAfA8_JCpm3vjKOGqh4pBwj3yqwOUfyGoJ9hKT74uuukh&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stubhub.com%2Fnfl-tickets%2Fgrouping%2F121" id="0f6237dc9cdf480bad1c5c2ce893a853" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:StubHub;elmt:;sec:shop-now;cpos:1;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.stubhub.com/nfl-tickets/grouping/121">Find tickets on Stubhub</a> <h2 id="jump-link-every-way-to-watch-nfl-games-this-season"></h2> <a class="athena-button rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=3b9fa87c-42fc-4c0d-9b00-70b0827f43ac&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=f3d4e4b2-2273-433c-87e7-fbfb4424f573&featureId=shopnow-button&merchantName=Gametime&linkText=Find+tickets+on+Gametime&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL2dhbWV0aW1lLmNvL3N1cGVyLWJvd2wtdGlja2V0cy9wZXJmb3JtZXJzL25mbHN1cGVyYm93bCIsImNvbnRlbnRVdWlkIjoiZjNkNGU0YjItMjI3My00MzNjLTg3ZTctZmJmYjQ0MjRmNTczIiwib3JpZ2luYWxVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL2dhbWV0aW1lLmNvL3N1cGVyLWJvd2wtdGlja2V0cy9wZXJmb3JtZXJzL25mbHN1cGVyYm93bCJ9&signature=AQAAARDhhK4Cl3oKObRC0QYWtu4kKAM3n8_eswi90EkuE_UK&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fgametime.co%2Fsuper-bowl-tickets%2Fperformers%2Fnflsuperbowl" id="a5f40e134e584960b3e9358aa41e760c" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Gametime;elmt:;sec:shop-now;cpos:1;pos:1" data-original-link="https://gametime.co/super-bowl-tickets/performers/nflsuperbowl">Find tickets on Gametime</a> <h2 id="jump-link-more-ways-to-watch-super-bowl-lx">More ways to watch Super Bowl LX</h2> <core-commerce id="a829a9b525e4434fafb21c1bf795bbf1" data-type="product-list"/> <core-commerce id="c93d42229a3d4dd184a88108a3d9b229" data-type="product-list"/> <core-commerce id="da7f283b92ce420391d1432d5bedda05" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://id.nfl.com/select-subscription?"/> This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/how-to-watch-the-2026-super-bowl-patriots-vs-seahawks-channel-start-time-where-to-stream-and-more-175759610.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2026: The Galaxy S26 lineup and everything else we expect

Samsung’s 2025 was filled with <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/samsung-galaxy-z-trifold-hands-on-flexing-is-believing-at-ces-2026-224343480.html" data-i13n="slk:new foldables;cpos:1;pos:1">new foldables</a>, an <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/samsung-galaxy-s25-edge-review-more-than-just-super-thin-180042172.html" data-i13n="slk:ultra-thin new form factor;cpos:2;pos:1">ultra-thin new form factor</a> and the launch of <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/samsung-galaxy-xr-hands-on-a-smarter-more-open-take-on-apples-vision-pro-for-half-the-price-020044642.html" data-i13n="slk:Google's XR platform;cpos:3;pos:1">Google's XR platform</a>. After making some <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/samsung-unveiled-ai-powered-products-at-ces-2026-everything-announced-from-the-years-first-press-conference-230059247.html" data-i13n="slk:announcements at CES 2026;cpos:4;pos:1">announcements at CES 2026</a>, the company is expected to host its first Galaxy Unpacked of the year in February to introduce the Galaxy S26 lineup.Engadget will be covering Galaxy Unpacked live, and we'll most likely have hands-on coverage of Samsung's new smartphones soon after they're announced. While we wait for an official invite, here's everything we expect Samsung will introduce at the first Galaxy Unpacked event of 2026.<h2 id="jump-link-what-is-unpacked-2026-taking-place">What is Unpacked 2026 taking place?</h2>But first, when is Unpacked going to happen? A <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://x.com/evleaks/status/2016989387272192230" data-i13n="cpos:5;pos:1">recent image shared by leakster Evan Blass</a> indicated Unpacked should be taking place on “February 25 2026.” Blass has a long history of credible leaks, which means this date is all but confirmed, and the main questions remaining would be — what time and in what timezone? We’re still waiting on Samsung for the official details, which should include answers to those questions.<h2 id="jump-link-galaxy-s26-s26-and-s26-ultra">Galaxy S26, S26+ and S26 Ultra</h2><figure><img src="https://media-mbst-pub-ue1.s3.amazonaws.com/creatr-uploaded-images/2025-01/59db82d0-d8d0-11ef-babd-deb856accfc5" data-crop-orig-src="https://media-mbst-pub-ue1.s3.amazonaws.com/creatr-uploaded-images/2025-01/59db82d0-d8d0-11ef-babd-deb856accfc5" style="height:1200px;width:2000px;" alt="Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra hands-on photo" data-uuid="adc661da-f271-3d94-b1ce-d6f264064d65"/><figcaption>Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra hands-on photo</figcaption><div class="photo-credit">Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget</div></figure>Samsung's restrained approach to updating its phones will likely continue with the Galaxy S26. Based on <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.androidheadlines.com/samsung-galaxy-s26-plus" data-i13n="slk:leaked;cpos:6;pos:1">leaked</a> <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.androidheadlines.com/2026/01/galaxy-s26-ultra-will-look-more-premium-than-the-s25-ultra.html" data-i13n="slk:images;cpos:7;pos:1">images</a> of the new lineup, the company is not expected to radically reinvent the look of the Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26+ or Galaxy S26 Ultra, and instead will stick with a similar design to what it used on the Galaxy S25. The phones will have a flat front screen and frame, with rounded corners and cameras housed in a vertical pill-shaped plateau on the back. Unlike Apple's move from the <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/iphone-16-pro-and-pro-max-review-apple-focuses-on-cameras-and-customization-120052459.html" data-i13n="slk:iPhone 16 Pro;cpos:8;pos:1">iPhone 16 Pro</a> to the <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/iphone-17-pro-and-pro-max-review-an-impactful-redesign-120002202.html" data-i13n="slk:iPhone 17 Pro;cpos:9;pos:1">iPhone 17 Pro</a>, the biggest difference here will likely be internal components like the screens, chips and camera sensors Samsung uses.Qualcomm's new <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/qualcomms-new-flagship-mobile-platform-is-the-snapdragon-8-elite-gen-5-060427445.html" data-i13n="slk:Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip;cpos:10;pos:1">Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip</a> is expected to be in all Samsung Galaxy S26 phones, though Korean news site <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20251020054600003?input=1195m" data-i13n="slk:Yonhap News reports;cpos:11;pos:1">Yonhap News reports</a> Samsung's relatively new <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://semiconductor.samsung.com/processor/mobile-processor/exynos-2600/" data-i13n="slk:Exynos 2600 chip;cpos:12;pos:1">Exynos 2600 chip</a> could be used in some phones in the lineup depending on the region, a strategy Samsung has deployed in the past. Either way the new phones should be more performant than the previous generation, and in the case of the models with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, particularly good at on-device AI processing.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" style="width:608px;height:596px;width:608px;height:596px;">I have compiled the most accurate comprehensive parameter comparison of Galaxy S25, S25+ and Galaxy S26、 S26+. Which one do you want to buy? <a href="https://t.co/aQpoSvYjOz">pic.twitter.com/aQpoSvYjOz</a>— Ice Universe (@UniverseIce) <a href="https://twitter.com/UniverseIce/status/1994663953180627176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 29, 2025</a></blockquote></div>One notable difference between the Galaxy S26 and the Galaxy S25 could be the phone's screen. The new phone will reportedly feature a 6.3-inch FHD+ display according to specs <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://x.com/UniverseIce/status/1994663953180627176?s=20" data-i13n="slk:shared by leaker Ice Universe;cpos:13;pos:1">shared by leaker Ice Universe</a>, which makes it ever so slightly larger than the 6.2-inch display used on the Galaxy S25. The S26 will also allegedly come with 12GB of RAM, either 256GB or 512GB of storage and a slightly larger 4,300mAh battery. Samsung isn't changing the cameras on the entry-level phone, though: leaks suggest it'll feature the same 50-megapixel main camera, 12-megapixel ultrawide, 10-megapixel 3x telephoto and 12-megapixel selfie camera as the previous generation. Changes appear to be even more minor on the Galaxy S26+. Other than the new Snapdragon chip, the phone will reportedly feature the same 6.7-inch FHD+ screen, 4,900mAh battery, 12GB of RAM and the same camera array used on the base Galaxy S26.The difference between the Galaxy S26 Ultra and Galaxy S25 Ultra is reportedly a bit clearer. <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.androidheadlines.com/2026/01/galaxy-s26-ultra-will-look-more-premium-than-the-s25-ultra.html" data-i13n="slk:According to Android Headlines;cpos:14;pos:1">According to Android Headlines</a>, the new phone's cameras will be slightly more raised, and stand out thanks to a new metallic finish. Samsung may also switch back to using an aluminum frame on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, after using titanium frames on both the Galaxy S24 and S25 Ultras. Most importantly, to make the phone actually support Qi2 rather than <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/the-samsung-galaxy-s25-doesnt-fully-support-qi2-on-its-own-180011574.html" data-i13n="slk:only technically work with the standard;cpos:15;pos:1">only technically work with the standard</a> when a case is attached, <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://9to5google.com/2025/06/25/galaxy-s26-ultra-removes-s-pen-digitizer/" data-i13n="slk:rumors suggest;cpos:16;pos:1">rumors suggest</a> Samsung will remove the S Pen digitizer layer in the phone and adopt a new method for accepting stylus input. It's not clear what that new method will actually be, but it could let the Galaxy S26 Ultra more easily work with Qi2 accessories without losing its stylus.Android Headlines also recently <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.androidheadlines.com/samsung-galaxy-s26-ultra-design" data-i13n="cpos:17;pos:1">shared what appear to be full image renders</a> of the S26 series, and they generally line up with what has already been rumored, leaked and reported so far. If these pictures are accurate, they give us a clearer look at the camera bump and two color variants of the S26 Ultra.<h2 id="jump-link-galaxy-buds-4">Galaxy Buds 4</h2><figure><img src="https://media-mbst-pub-ue1.s3.amazonaws.com/creatr-uploaded-images/2024-07/ad3a06e0-3ea2-11ef-abf6-693055a6aa30" data-crop-orig-src="https://media-mbst-pub-ue1.s3.amazonaws.com/creatr-uploaded-images/2024-07/ad3a06e0-3ea2-11ef-abf6-693055a6aa30" style="height:619px;width:1100px;" alt="Galaxy Buds 3 Pro in case." data-uuid="a234976a-e5ea-37c3-88ac-a1377597a567"/><figcaption>Galaxy Buds 3 Pro in case.</figcaption><div class="photo-credit">Engadget</div></figure>Samsung released the <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/samsung-galaxy-buds-3-and-galaxy-buds-3-pro-review-airpods-clones-that-actually-deliver-171024116.html" data-i13n="slk:Galaxy Buds 3 and 3 Pro;cpos:18;pos:1">Galaxy Buds 3 and 3 Pro</a> in 2024, with a major redesign that brought them much more in line with Apple's AirPods. The Galaxy Buds 4 and Buds 4 Pro Samsung is rumored to be announcing soon won't necessarily change that, though they will feature a more compact case and less angular stems, <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://x.com/AssembleDebug/status/2007786515330720116?s=20" data-i13n="slk:according to leaked images;cpos:19;pos:1">according to leaked images</a> from the Samsung Tips app.Support for head gestures to accept and decline calls, a feature Apple includes on the AirPods Pro 3 and AirPods 4, is <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-galaxy-buds-4-pro-design-features-leak-3616254/" data-i13n="slk:also rumored;cpos:20;pos:1">also rumored</a> to work on both versions of the new Galaxy Buds. <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.sammobile.com/news/galaxy-buds-4-pro-hints-surface-alongside-a-bunch-of-other-unreleased-products/" data-i13n="slk:SamMobile reports;cpos:21;pos:1">SamMobile reports</a> the Galaxy Buds 4 and 4 Pro may also ship with a new Ultra Wideband chip that will make them easier to find with <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/everything-google-announced-at-the-android-show-174155773.html" data-i13n="slk:Google's Find Hub;cpos:22;pos:1">Google's Find Hub</a> network.<h2 id="jump-link-galaxy-z-trifold">Galaxy Z Trifold</h2><figure><img src="https://d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net/images/user-uploaded/trifold-front.jpg" data-crop-orig-src="https://d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net/images/user-uploaded/trifold-front.jpg" style="height:2000px;width:3333px;" alt="Yes, the TriFold has a crease, two in fact. But they still don't ruin the experience. " data-uuid="96b9f12a-9331-4149-a921-ade1ba8c679b"/><figcaption>Yes, the TriFold has a crease, two in fact. But they still don't ruin the experience. </figcaption><div class="photo-credit">Sam Rutherford for Engadget</div></figure>Samsung announced the <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://news.samsung.com/us/samsung-introducing-galaxy-z-trifold-shape-whats-next-mobile-innovation/" data-i13n="slk:Galaxy Z TriFold;cpos:23;pos:1">Galaxy Z TriFold</a> in late 2025 without firm details of when the new smartphone-that-folds-into-a-tablet would be available in North America. That info came on January 27, when the company announced the <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/the-samsung-galaxy-z-trifold-will-cost-2900-in-the-us-140000013.html" data-i13n="slk:TriFold would be available in the US;cpos:24;pos:1">TriFold would be available in the US</a> on January 30, for a whopping $2,900. Considering we’ve already <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/samsung-galaxy-z-trifold-hands-on-flexing-is-believing-at-ces-2026-224343480.html" data-i13n="slk:seen the device in person at CES 2026;cpos:25;pos:1">seen the device in person at CES 2026</a> and people are most likely to have had a chance to look at, if not buy the foldable for themselves by the time Unpacked rolls around, we don’t expect Samsung to spend too much time dwelling on it, if at all.<h2 id="jump-link-galaxy-s26-edge">Galaxy S26 Edge</h2><figure><img src="https://media-mbst-pub-ue1.s3.amazonaws.com/creatr-uploaded-images/2025-05/c364f410-37ef-11f0-be1e-8f00ba629b9d" data-crop-orig-src="https://media-mbst-pub-ue1.s3.amazonaws.com/creatr-uploaded-images/2025-05/c364f410-37ef-11f0-be1e-8f00ba629b9d" style="height:2000px;width:3333px;" alt="At just 5.8mm thick, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge is one of the thinnest smartphones ever made. " data-uuid="8235cb20-3dd8-3b4e-a427-ef7a3d0395ed"/><figcaption>At just 5.8mm thick, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge is one of the thinnest smartphones ever made. </figcaption><div class="photo-credit">Sam Rutherford for Engadget</div></figure>When the <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/samsung-galaxy-s25-edge-review-more-than-just-super-thin-180042172.html" data-i13n="slk:Galaxy S25 Edge;cpos:26;pos:1">Galaxy S25 Edge</a> was announced in 2025, it seemed possible that Samsung could replace its "Plus" smartphone with a unique form factor, just like Apple has opted to do with the <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/iphone-air-review-thinness-with-purpose-120037520.html" data-i13n="slk:iPhone Air;cpos:27;pos:1">iPhone Air</a>. There have been <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.tomsguide.com/phones/samsung-phones/samsung-reportedly-canceling-galaxy-s26-edge-poor-sales-of-s25-edge-lead-to-last-minute-change" data-i13n="slk:conflicting reports;cpos:28;pos:1">conflicting reports</a> on the matter, but it seems like Samsung will not be doing that with the Galaxy S26 Edge.Instead, the smartphone will reportedly remain another option, much like foldables are for customers not swayed by Samsung's traditional smartphones. The Galaxy S26 Edge is rumored to feature a slightly different design than last year's model, <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.androidheadlines.com/samsung-galaxy-s26-edge" data-i13n="slk:according to Android Headlines;cpos:29;pos:1">according to Android Headlines</a>, with a large rectangular camera plateau that's reminiscent of Google's Pixel phones, and the raised oval Apple used on the iPhone Air. Beyond that, the phone is also expected to be ever so slightly thinner at 5.5mm than the 5.8mm Galaxy S25 Edge.<h2 id="jump-link-bixby-and-other-ai-features">Bixby and other AI features</h2><figure><img src="https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2023-02/95ec60e0-b2b3-11ed-8ebc-465b5edce737" data-crop-orig-src="https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2023-02/95ec60e0-b2b3-11ed-8ebc-465b5edce737" style="height:3280px;width:4928px;" alt="undefined" data-uuid="c69db0d3-118b-3b6f-9d32-ea149be4495f"/><figcaption></figcaption><div class="photo-credit"></div></figure>Samsung already acts as a first place Google can show off new AI features for Android, but the company is reportedly exploring other AI partnerships, too. In June 2025, <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-01/samsung-nears-wide-ranging-deal-with-perplexity-for-ai-features?embedded-checkout=true" data-i13n="slk:Bloomberg reported;cpos:30;pos:1">Bloomberg reported</a> that Samsung was nearing a deal with Perplexity to integrate its AI-powered search engine across OneUI and its homegrown mobile browser. Perplexity already has <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/announcing-our-global-partnership-with-motorola" data-i13n="slk:a deal with Motorola;cpos:31;pos:1">a deal with Motorola</a> on its Razr phones, so the only thing that would make a deal with Samsung unusual is the close relationship the company already has with Google.The company also accidentally announced <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.sammobile.com/news/samsung-new-bixby-for-one-ui-8-5-official-coming-to-beta-soon" data-i13n="slk:a new version of its Bixby AI assistant;cpos:32;pos:1">a new version of its Bixby AI assistant</a>, which will likely also be integrated with Perplexity and could serve as an alternative to Google Gemini. Both a new Bixby and a deeper integration with Perplexity seem like natural new software features to show off at Galaxy Unpacked.Update, January 27 2026, 11:55AM ET: This story has been updated to reflect the latest news around the Galaxy Z TriFold’s price and availability in the US.Update, January 30 2026, 12:45PM ET: This story has been updated to include the latest leaks on the possible dates for Unpacked 2026.Update, February 02 2026, 11:30AM ET: This story has been updated to include the latest leaks with full image renders of the S26 trio of devices.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/samsung-galaxy-unpacked-2026-the-galaxy-s26-lineup-and-everything-else-we-expect-130000999.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

Blizzard's quality assurance workers finally have a union contract

Almost three years after starting the bargaining process with Microsoft, quality assurance workers at two Blizzard locations have <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/blizzard-quality-assurance-workers-ratify-video-game-union-contract-microsoft" data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1">ratified a union contract</a>. The agreement covers 60 workers at <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/activision-blizzard-second-qa-tester-union-vote-results-205949946.html" data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1">Blizzard Albany</a> and Blizzard Austin.The agreement includes guaranteed pay increases across the three years of the contract, assurances that workers will be given fair credits and recognition on games that ship, discrimination-free disability accommodations, restrictions on crunch (i.e. mandatory overtime) and "protection to immigrant workers from unfair discipline and loss of seniority while streamlining legal verification." Stronger rules around the use of AI are included in the contract as well. “At a time when layoffs are hitting our industry hard, today is another big step in building a better future for video game workers at every level,” Blizzard Albany quality analyst Brock Davis said in a statement. “For quality assurance testers, this contract provides us wages to live on, increased job security benefits and guardrails around artificial intelligence in the workplace.”As with other unions in Microsoft's game divisions, the Blizzard QA workers organized with the Communications Workers of America. This marks the third union agreement at Microsoft after <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/gaming/zenimax-and-microsoft-ratify-union-agreement-224148192.html" data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1">ZeniMax</a> and <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/raven-software-gets-its-union-contract-with-microsoft-three-years-after-voting-to-organize-150133353.html" data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1">Raven Software</a> workers ratified contracts last summer. Several other Blizzard divisions have unionized within the last year, including the <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/gaming/blizzards-story-and-franchise-development-team-has-voted-to-unionize-213818158.html" data-i13n="cpos:5;pos:1">cinematics team</a>, <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-developers-behind-overwatch-have-unionized-154021756.html" data-i13n="cpos:6;pos:1">Overwatch developers</a> and <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/gaming/over-450-diablo-developers-at-blizzard-have-unionized-180544383.html" data-i13n="cpos:7;pos:1">a unit that works on Diablo</a>.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/blizzards-quality-assurance-workers-finally-have-a-union-contract-162614979.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

ExpressVPN two-year plans are up to 81 percent off right now

Feb 2, 2026

Super Bowl 2026 TV deals: The best sales this week on OLEDs and other smart TVs ahead of kickoff

The big game is one of the few instances now in the US where most people gather around the TV to watch the live event together. While the teams playing in <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/how-to-watch-the-2026-super-bowl-patriots-vs-seahawks-channel-where-to-stream-and-more-173222330.html" data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1">Super Bowl 2026</a> are the true stars of the show (and <a target="_blank" rel="" class="link" href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/music/article/super-bowl-weekend-musical-lineup-bad-bunny-green-day-olivia-dean-and-post-malone-are-all-set-to-perform-195657927.html" data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1">Bad Bunny</a>, of course), your TV is a pretty important part of the puzzle of putting together an excellent Super Bowl party. Maybe you’ve been thinking about replacing an aging set, or you’re itching for a full refresh of your <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/home/home-theater/the-best-gear-to-upgrade-your-home-theater-setup-130000755.html" data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1">home theater setup</a> — either way, you’ll want to try to get a good deal on a new TV. Thankfully, the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl can be a great time to shop for a new TV. Generally, TV prices steadily decrease after a new model comes out. Some 2026 TV models were announced at CES and are forthcoming things year, making now a good time to look for discounts on 2025 sets. Aside from the holiday shopping season, now is one of the best times of the year to save on a TV. Here, we’ve curated the best Super Bowl TV deals we could find this year, from already affordable sets discounted even further to high-end OLEDs that are hundreds of dollars off. <h2 id="jump-link-super-bowl-2026-tv-deals-for-less-than-500">Super Bowl 2026 TV deals for less than $500</h2> You can easily find solid 1080p and 4K TV sets within this budget-friendly price range. What you’ll be more limited in is size — most TV deals under $500 we’re seeing right now are on sets up to 55 inches. There are a few 65- and 75-inch models in there, but the pickings are slim. <core-commerce data-type="product-list" id="d8f2258e-340d-48df-b806-88bc1235600e" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Hisense-Cinema-Hi-QLED-Smart-43E6QF/dp/B0FHL66FPY/?th=1"></core-commerce> <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0DYQZFXSN&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=19a8ed95-5057-4f9e-952b-502d925814e1&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=Hisense+32-inch+Class+A4+1080p+FHD+smart+TV+for+%2498+%2818+percent+off%29&custData=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&signature=AQAAAVm400UU8YsX47ThJeOtLlIietY03sPG6mZdzDLnRcP-&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FHisense-32-Inch-Class-1080p-32A4NF%2Fdp%2FB0DYQZFXSN" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:4;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/Hisense-32-Inch-Class-1080p-32A4NF/dp/B0DYQZFXSN?th=1">Hisense 32-inch Class A4 1080p FHD smart TV for $98 (18 percent off)</a> <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0F8XV7MPP&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=19a8ed95-5057-4f9e-952b-502d925814e1&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=Roku+24-inch+720p+smart+TV+for+%24100+%2818+percent+off%29&custData=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&signature=AQAAAdQoZFn-r7z1UItvjjilWmFk2sF5LLjPs55lgG7fnA-o&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FRoku-Smart-2025-Television-Entertainment%2Fdp%2FB0F8XV7MPP" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:5;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/Roku-Smart-2025-Television-Entertainment/dp/B0F8XV7MPP?th=1">Roku 24-inch 720p smart TV for $100 (18 percent off)</a> <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0C1J2SVKD&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=19a8ed95-5057-4f9e-952b-502d925814e1&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=TCL+40-inch+Class+S3+1080p+smart+TV+for+%24150+%2821+percent+off%29&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL3RjbC1maXJlLXR2LTQwLWluY2gtY2xhc3MtczMtaGQtc21hcnQtdHYvZHAvQjBDMUoyU1ZLRC8_dGFnPWdkZ3QwYy0yMCIsImNvbnRlbnRVdWlkIjoiMTlhOGVkOTUtNTA1Ny00ZjllLTk1MmItNTAyZDkyNTgxNGUxIiwib3JpZ2luYWxVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL3RjbC1maXJlLXR2LTQwLWluY2gtY2xhc3MtczMtaGQtc21hcnQtdHYvZHAvQjBDMUoyU1ZLRC8iLCJkeW5hbWljQ2VudHJhbFRyYWNraW5nSWQiOnRydWUsInNpdGVJZCI6InVzLWVuZ2FkZ2V0IiwicGFnZUlkIjoiMXAtYXV0b2xpbmsiLCJmZWF0dXJlSWQiOiJ0ZXh0LWxpbmsifQ&signature=AQAAAUNU90orv25oSDdvTfKZ6_AIrVWcAEkD39qRl5i4p40L&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Ftcl-fire-tv-40-inch-class-s3-hd-smart-tv%2Fdp%2FB0C1J2SVKD%2F" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:6;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/tcl-fire-tv-40-inch-class-s3-hd-smart-tv/dp/B0C1J2SVKD/">TCL 40-inch Class S3 1080p smart TV for $150 (21 percent off)</a> <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0DWHKF7V5&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=19a8ed95-5057-4f9e-952b-502d925814e1&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=Roku+55-inch+4K+smart+TV+for+%24248+%2829+percent+off%29&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL1Jva3UtU21hcnQtMjAyNS1UZWxldmlzaW9uLUVudGVydGFpbm1lbnQvZHAvQjBEV0hLRjdWNS8_dGFnPWdkZ3QwYy0yMCIsImNvbnRlbnRVdWlkIjoiMTlhOGVkOTUtNTA1Ny00ZjllLTk1MmItNTAyZDkyNTgxNGUxIiwib3JpZ2luYWxVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL1Jva3UtU21hcnQtMjAyNS1UZWxldmlzaW9uLUVudGVydGFpbm1lbnQvZHAvQjBEV0hLRjdWNS8iLCJkeW5hbWljQ2VudHJhbFRyYWNraW5nSWQiOnRydWUsInNpdGVJZCI6InVzLWVuZ2FkZ2V0IiwicGFnZUlkIjoiMXAtYXV0b2xpbmsiLCJmZWF0dXJlSWQiOiJ0ZXh0LWxpbmsifQ&signature=AQAAAbogqMcmG3550JhydikGYQnSGLDhc_hp_yOzFv8QaK4D&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FRoku-Smart-2025-Television-Entertainment%2Fdp%2FB0DWHKF7V5%2F" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:7;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/Roku-Smart-2025-Television-Entertainment/dp/B0DWHKF7V5/?th=1">Roku 55-inch 4K smart TV for $248 (29 percent off)</a> <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0DWHVZHBY&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=19a8ed95-5057-4f9e-952b-502d925814e1&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=Roku+55-inch+Mini+LED+4K+smart+TV+for+%24348+%2830+percent+off%29&custData=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&signature=AQAAAcgQScyfNIT54wJVjPuc9hyruZiyG5fQD8OchTDWZudF&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FRoku-Smart-2025-Television-Streaming%2Fdp%2FB0DWHVZHBY" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:8;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/Roku-Smart-2025-Television-Streaming/dp/B0DWHVZHBY?th=1">Roku 55-inch Mini LED 4K smart TV for $348 (30 percent off)</a> <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0D4P1T8RV&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=19a8ed95-5057-4f9e-952b-502d925814e1&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=TCL+75-inch+Class+S5+4K+smart+TV+for+%24480+%2826+percent+off%29&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL3RjbC1maXJlLXR2LTc1LWluY2gtY2xhc3MtczUtNGstc21hcnQtdHYvZHAvQjBENFAxVDhSVi8_dGFnPWdkZ3QwYy0yMCIsImNvbnRlbnRVdWlkIjoiMTlhOGVkOTUtNTA1Ny00ZjllLTk1MmItNTAyZDkyNTgxNGUxIiwib3JpZ2luYWxVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL3RjbC1maXJlLXR2LTc1LWluY2gtY2xhc3MtczUtNGstc21hcnQtdHYvZHAvQjBENFAxVDhSVi8iLCJkeW5hbWljQ2VudHJhbFRyYWNraW5nSWQiOnRydWUsInNpdGVJZCI6InVzLWVuZ2FkZ2V0IiwicGFnZUlkIjoiMXAtYXV0b2xpbmsiLCJmZWF0dXJlSWQiOiJ0ZXh0LWxpbmsifQ&signature=AQAAAU29VoaDYPfSrJJ3eGAGdBbgXcUp40hP-1OWj3G1jTnB&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Ftcl-fire-tv-75-inch-class-s5-4k-smart-tv%2Fdp%2FB0D4P1T8RV%2F" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:9;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/tcl-fire-tv-75-inch-class-s5-4k-smart-tv/dp/B0D4P1T8RV/?th=1">TCL 75-inch Class S5 4K smart TV for $480 (26 percent off)</a> <h2 id="jump-link-oled-tv-deals">OLED TV deals</h2> This is where you want to look if you want your new TV to have the richest colors, deepest blacks and excellent contrast performance. Of course, that all comes at steeper prices — it can be difficult to find a good OLED set for less than $1,000, even on sale. <core-commerce data-type="product-list" id="0114b148-5f50-4db4-bb3f-dad5ff72ab46" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DXMJGQWC/?th=1"></core-commerce> <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0FHX84W4X&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=19a8ed95-5057-4f9e-952b-502d925814e1&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=Sony+55-inch+Bravia+XR8B+4K+smart+TV+for+%24998+%289+percent+off%29&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL1NvbnktRXhjbHVzaXZlLUZlYXR1cmVzLVBsYXlTdGF0aW9uJTI1MjVDMiUyNTI1QUUtSy01NVhSOEIvZHAvQjBGSFg4NFc0WC8_dGFnPWdkZ3QwYy0yMCIsImNvbnRlbnRVdWlkIjoiMTlhOGVkOTUtNTA1Ny00ZjllLTk1MmItNTAyZDkyNTgxNGUxIiwib3JpZ2luYWxVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL1NvbnktRXhjbHVzaXZlLUZlYXR1cmVzLVBsYXlTdGF0aW9uJTI1QzIlMjVBRS1LLTU1WFI4Qi9kcC9CMEZIWDg0VzRYLyIsImR5bmFtaWNDZW50cmFsVHJhY2tpbmdJZCI6dHJ1ZSwic2l0ZUlkIjoidXMtZW5nYWRnZXQiLCJwYWdlSWQiOiIxcC1hdXRvbGluayIsImZlYXR1cmVJZCI6InRleHQtbGluayJ9&signature=AQAAAdl9JeosRF4LBadWSasNH5hZ1iJOk6q6ExZOJL5kWZr2&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FSony-Exclusive-Features-PlayStation%2525C2%2525AE-K-55XR8B%2Fdp%2FB0FHX84W4X%2F" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:10;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/Sony-Exclusive-Features-PlayStation%C2%AE-K-55XR8B/dp/B0FHX84W4X/?th=1">Sony 55-inch Bravia XR8B 4K smart TV for $998 (9 percent off)</a> <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0DXMJFJ7W&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=19a8ed95-5057-4f9e-952b-502d925814e1&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=Samsung+65-inch+Class+OLED+S95F+4K+smart+TV+for+%242%2C298+%2823+percent+off%29&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL2dwL3Byb2R1Y3QvQjBEWE1KRko3Vy8_dGFnPWdkZ3QwYy0yMCIsImNvbnRlbnRVdWlkIjoiMTlhOGVkOTUtNTA1Ny00ZjllLTk1MmItNTAyZDkyNTgxNGUxIiwib3JpZ2luYWxVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL2dwL3Byb2R1Y3QvQjBEWE1KRko3Vy8iLCJkeW5hbWljQ2VudHJhbFRyYWNraW5nSWQiOnRydWUsInNpdGVJZCI6InVzLWVuZ2FkZ2V0IiwicGFnZUlkIjoiMXAtYXV0b2xpbmsiLCJmZWF0dXJlSWQiOiJ0ZXh0LWxpbmsifQ&signature=AQAAAdDvh0DjmXRD9dwhynIaT36SDSRSe03wIRkdMsqFp0Ri&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Fproduct%2FB0DXMJFJ7W%2F" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:11;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DXMJFJ7W/">Samsung 65-inch Class OLED S95F 4K smart TV for $2,298 (23 percent off)</a> <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0BYPMMLTR&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=19a8ed95-5057-4f9e-952b-502d925814e1&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=Sony+77-inch+Bravia+XR+A95L+OLED+4K+smart+TV+for+%243%2C498+%2830+percent+off%29&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL1NvbnktUUQtT0xFRC1pbmNoLUJSQVZJQS1VbHRyYS9kcC9CMEJZUE1NTFRSLz90YWc9Z2RndDBjLTIwIiwiY29udGVudFV1aWQiOiIxOWE4ZWQ5NS01MDU3LTRmOWUtOTUyYi01MDJkOTI1ODE0ZTEiLCJvcmlnaW5hbFVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFtYXpvbi5jb20vU29ueS1RRC1PTEVELWluY2gtQlJBVklBLVVsdHJhL2RwL0IwQllQTU1MVFIvIiwiZHluYW1pY0NlbnRyYWxUcmFja2luZ0lkIjp0cnVlLCJzaXRlSWQiOiJ1cy1lbmdhZGdldCIsInBhZ2VJZCI6IjFwLWF1dG9saW5rIiwiZmVhdHVyZUlkIjoidGV4dC1saW5rIn0&signature=AQAAAd1NoJogQS9hNcu0jrD9Nd1I-LLxcdDJZqquWRYz1orp&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FSony-QD-OLED-inch-BRAVIA-Ultra%2Fdp%2FB0BYPMMLTR%2F" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:12;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/Sony-QD-OLED-inch-BRAVIA-Ultra/dp/B0BYPMMLTR/">Sony 77-inch Bravia XR A95L OLED 4K smart TV for $3,498 (30 percent off)</a> <h2 id="jump-link-super-bowl-2026-tv-deals-for-500-and-up">Super Bowl 2026 TV deals for $500 and up</h2> This will likely be the sweet spot for many people when it comes to TV features, performance and price. Good 4K sets are common in this price range, and you’ll also find some Mini LED sets available here as well. <core-commerce data-type="product-list" id="d17379d6-6cfa-44b7-b45a-2bdb66f89dc5" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Hisense-Class-Mini-LED-Google-65U8QG/dp/B0F1DV217B/?th=1"></core-commerce> <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0FTT5B1C3&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=19a8ed95-5057-4f9e-952b-502d925814e1&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=TCL+65-inch+Class+T7+4K+smart+TV+for+%24500+%2829+percent+off%29&custData=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&signature=AQAAAfdc-qA9llgeIm7eeAt5Nimjxg2zUB-l-YWYUR5bgQRN&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FTCL-65T7-120HZ-144HZ-Brightness-Television%2Fdp%2FB0FTT5B1C3%2F" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:13;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/TCL-65T7-120HZ-144HZ-Brightness-Television/dp/B0FTT5B1C3/?th=1">TCL 65-inch Class T7 4K smart TV for $500 (29 percent off)</a> <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0DYVR8NVD&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=19a8ed95-5057-4f9e-952b-502d925814e1&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=Hisense+75-inch+QD7+Mini-LED+4K+smart+TV+for+%24548+%2816+percent+off%29&custData=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&signature=AQAAAQR5JUNmauqqzmih0hvJxo4jvJay93QqyJe2chZT8X6n&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FHisense-Class-Mini-LED-Smart-75QD7QF%2Fdp%2FB0DYVR8NVD%2F" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:14;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/Hisense-Class-Mini-LED-Smart-75QD7QF/dp/B0DYVR8NVD/">Hisense 75-inch QD7 Mini-LED 4K smart TV for $548 (16 percent off)</a> <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0C1TQYNWX&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=19a8ed95-5057-4f9e-952b-502d925814e1&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=Amazon+65-inch+Fire+TV+Omni+Mini+LED+4K+smart+TV+for+%24920+%2816+percent+off%29&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL2FtYXpvbi1maXJlLXR2LTY1LWluY2gtb21uaS1taW5pLWxlZC1zZXJpZXMtc21hcnQtdHYvZHAvQjBDMVRRWU5XWC8_dGFnPWdkZ3QwYy0yMCIsImNvbnRlbnRVdWlkIjoiMTlhOGVkOTUtNTA1Ny00ZjllLTk1MmItNTAyZDkyNTgxNGUxIiwib3JpZ2luYWxVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL2FtYXpvbi1maXJlLXR2LTY1LWluY2gtb21uaS1taW5pLWxlZC1zZXJpZXMtc21hcnQtdHYvZHAvQjBDMVRRWU5XWC8iLCJkeW5hbWljQ2VudHJhbFRyYWNraW5nSWQiOnRydWUsInNpdGVJZCI6InVzLWVuZ2FkZ2V0IiwicGFnZUlkIjoiMXAtYXV0b2xpbmsiLCJmZWF0dXJlSWQiOiJ0ZXh0LWxpbmsifQ&signature=AQAAAeRuJE9k2vXB4HVcGAWMBG8t8RL2p8b8NzpBcKC9oMTM&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Famazon-fire-tv-65-inch-omni-mini-led-series-smart-tv%2Fdp%2FB0C1TQYNWX%2F" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:15;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/amazon-fire-tv-65-inch-omni-mini-led-series-smart-tv/dp/B0C1TQYNWX/">Amazon 65-inch Fire TV Omni Mini LED 4K smart TV for $920 (16 percent off)</a> <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0F53CZ4WT&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=19a8ed95-5057-4f9e-952b-502d925814e1&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=TCL+65-inch+Class+QM8K+Mini+LED+4K+smart+TV+for+%24998+%2833+percent+off%29&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL2dwL3Byb2R1Y3QvQjBGNTNDWjRXVC8_dGFnPWdkZ3QwYy0yMCIsImNvbnRlbnRVdWlkIjoiMTlhOGVkOTUtNTA1Ny00ZjllLTk1MmItNTAyZDkyNTgxNGUxIiwib3JpZ2luYWxVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL2dwL3Byb2R1Y3QvQjBGNTNDWjRXVC8iLCJkeW5hbWljQ2VudHJhbFRyYWNraW5nSWQiOnRydWUsInNpdGVJZCI6InVzLWVuZ2FkZ2V0IiwicGFnZUlkIjoiMXAtYXV0b2xpbmsiLCJmZWF0dXJlSWQiOiJ0ZXh0LWxpbmsifQ&signature=AQAAAdgWRZHp02Vakilph6wkOLPLL8fdw52lFCy2Ia8Yxe_l&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Fproduct%2FB0F53CZ4WT%2F" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:16;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0F53CZ4WT/?th=1">TCL 65-inch Class QM8K Mini LED 4K smart TV for $998 (33 percent off)</a> <h2 id="jump-link-streaming-and-home-entertainment-deals">Streaming and home entertainment deals</h2> A good TV is key, but having the right peripherals and accessories to go along with it will complete your home theater setup. Deals we’re tracking right now include discounts on streaming devices, soundbars and projectors. <core-commerce data-type="product-list" id="2b879598-9afc-4364-8d0d-2c4c9d547888" data-original-url="https://www.disneyplus.com/"></core-commerce> <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=1e71dc69-0ad7-47e7-abf5-dc3926557fa3&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=19a8ed95-5057-4f9e-952b-502d925814e1&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Sonos&linkText=Sonos+big+game+sale+%E2%80%94+up+to+20+percent+off+home+theater+gear%3A+Get+the+Sonos+Beam+soundbar+for+%24130+off%2C+the+Era+300+speaker+for+%24100+off+and+more&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5zb25vcy5jb20vZW4tdXMvc2hvcC9wcm9tb3Rpb25hbC1vZmZlcnMiLCJjb250ZW50VXVpZCI6IjE5YThlZDk1LTUwNTctNGY5ZS05NTJiLTUwMmQ5MjU4MTRlMSIsIm9yaWdpbmFsVXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc29ub3MuY29tL2VuLXVzL3Nob3AvcHJvbW90aW9uYWwtb2ZmZXJzIn0&signature=AQAAAS-4ch0OlX_uksqJk4MbEQHfSJg4aFSc2Pe0llYhXWBw&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sonos.com%2Fen-us%2Fshop%2Fpromotional-offers" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Sonos;elmt:;cpos:17;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/promotional-offers">Sonos big game sale — up to 20 percent off home theater gear: Get the Sonos Beam soundbar for $130 off, the Era 300 speaker for $100 off and more</a> <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0DXXYS4BJ&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=19a8ed95-5057-4f9e-952b-502d925814e1&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=Roku+Streaming+Stick+HD+2025+for+%2416+%2847+percent+off%29&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL1Jva3UtU3RyZWFtaW5nLVN0aWNrLUhELTIwMjUvZHAvQjBEWFhZUzRCSj90YWc9Z2RndDBjLTIwIiwiY29udGVudFV1aWQiOiIxOWE4ZWQ5NS01MDU3LTRmOWUtOTUyYi01MDJkOTI1ODE0ZTEiLCJvcmlnaW5hbFVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFtYXpvbi5jb20vUm9rdS1TdHJlYW1pbmctU3RpY2stSEQtMjAyNS9kcC9CMERYWFlTNEJKIiwiZHluYW1pY0NlbnRyYWxUcmFja2luZ0lkIjp0cnVlLCJzaXRlSWQiOiJ1cy1lbmdhZGdldCIsInBhZ2VJZCI6IjFwLWF1dG9saW5rIiwiZmVhdHVyZUlkIjoidGV4dC1saW5rIn0&signature=AQAAATOA_R_f2S4sRy7YF_yZv-k4qnvRWvwYFtJMj7ma2mhU&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FRoku-Streaming-Stick-HD-2025%2Fdp%2FB0DXXYS4BJ" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:18;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/Roku-Streaming-Stick-HD-2025/dp/B0DXXYS4BJ?th=1">Roku Streaming Stick HD 2025 for $16 (47 percent off)</a> <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0DF44RTTP&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=19a8ed95-5057-4f9e-952b-502d925814e1&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=Roku+Ultra+streamer+for+%2478+%2822+percent+off%29&custData=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&signature=AQAAAdnLTuArbI3sdW34ekHUbr_2KQ4ckAfMXHux_BgcRD1l&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FRoku-Ultra-2024-Streaming-Rechargeable%2Fdp%2FB0DF44RTTP%2F" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:19;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/Roku-Ultra-2024-Streaming-Rechargeable/dp/B0DF44RTTP/">Roku Ultra streamer for $78 (22 percent off)</a> <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0DY1Z934F&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=19a8ed95-5057-4f9e-952b-502d925814e1&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=Samsung+HW+B400F+soundbar+with+built-in+subwoofer+for+%24100+%2829+percent+off%29&custData=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&signature=AQAAAb4zhJUyprfBaIQDc1hPMwRfo87foZVrz5Tuq8D_z9wo&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FSamsung-Soundbar-Subwoofer-Surround-Expansion%2Fdp%2FB0DY1Z934F%2F" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:20;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Soundbar-Subwoofer-Surround-Expansion/dp/B0DY1Z934F/?th=1">Samsung HW B400F soundbar with built-in subwoofer for $100 (29 percent off)</a> <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0BCWNQPQ7&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=19a8ed95-5057-4f9e-952b-502d925814e1&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=Anker+Nebula+Capsule+3+projector+for+%24540+%2828+percent+off%29&custData=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&signature=AQAAAbgJohDafKYe1ENbLxfLZ2MZVUwL_VHP9yfqxg0Lawz-&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FProjector-Portable-Autofocus-120-Inch-Playtime%2Fdp%2FB0BCWNQPQ7" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:21;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/Projector-Portable-Autofocus-120-Inch-Playtime/dp/B0BCWNQPQ7?th=1">Anker Nebula Capsule 3 projector for $540 (28 percent off)</a> <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0FQNXHVGS&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=19a8ed95-5057-4f9e-952b-502d925814e1&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=Valerion+VisionMaster+Max+4K+projector+for+%243%2C999+%2820+percent+off%29&custData=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&signature=AQAAAd6v8MWZ3EfMDN_IgoRB-j_9yiSRiRWiQGaay_FkMf4V&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FValerion-VisionMaster-Max-Projector-Speckle-Reduction%2Fdp%2FB0FQNXHVGS%2Fref%3Dsr_1_1" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:22;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/Valerion-VisionMaster-Max-Projector-Speckle-Reduction/dp/B0FQNXHVGS/ref=sr_1_1?th=1">Valerion VisionMaster Max 4K projector for $3,999 (20 percent off)</a>This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/super-bowl-2026-tv-deals-the-best-sales-this-week-on-oleds-and-other-smart-tvs-ahead-of-kickoff-160000485.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

The Apple Watch Series 11 is back on sale for $299

Whether you're one of the few people still keeping up with New Year's resolutions or just want an upgraded smartwatch, now is a good time to get an Apple Watch. Currently, the <a data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:1;pos:1" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0FQFJ4V5M&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=78902e66-331a-45a8-8c59-e293650f49bb&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=Apple+Watch+Series+11&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL0FwcGxlLVdhdGNoLVNtYXJ0d2F0Y2gtQWx1bWludW0tQWx3YXlzL2RwL0IwRlFGSjRWNU0_dGFnPWdkZ3QwYy0yMCIsImNvbnRlbnRVdWlkIjoiNzg5MDJlNjYtMzMxYS00NWE4LThjNTktZTI5MzY1MGY0OWJiIiwib3JpZ2luYWxVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL0FwcGxlLVdhdGNoLVNtYXJ0d2F0Y2gtQWx1bWludW0tQWx3YXlzL2RwL0IwRlFGSjRWNU0iLCJkeW5hbWljQ2VudHJhbFRyYWNraW5nSWQiOnRydWUsInNpdGVJZCI6InVzLWVuZ2FkZ2V0IiwicGFnZUlkIjoiMXAtYXV0b2xpbmsiLCJmZWF0dXJlSWQiOiJ0ZXh0LWxpbmsifQ&signature=AQAAAf6uE7QaBr83cHKXeeOKQKYEFj88imPfOL5V69dZQyeK&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FApple-Watch-Smartwatch-Aluminum-Always%2Fdp%2FB0FQFJ4V5M" class="rapid-with-clickid" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Watch-Smartwatch-Aluminum-Always/dp/B0FQFJ4V5M?th=1">Apple Watch Series 11</a> is on sale for $299, down from $399. The 25 percent discount brings the 2025 model back down to its record-low price. We named the Apple Watch Series 11 as our choice for <a data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/wearables/best-smartwatches-153013118.html">best smartwatch overall</a>. It scored a <a data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/wearables/apple-watch-series-11-review-a-reliable-wearable-for-when-it-matters-most-120016945.html">90 in our review</a> thanks to its 24 hours-plus of battery life and a thin, light design that's easy to wear. It also offers new health metrics, including Apple's <a data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/wearables/apple-watch-series-11-includes-5g-and-a-hypertension-tracking-feature-172451506.html">hypertension alerts system</a> and Sleep Score.  <core-commerce id="8000599895224be9bb55f4f4c980b185" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Watch-Smartwatch-Aluminum-Always/dp/B0FQFL8PZ5?th=1"></core-commerce> The Apple Watch Series 11 deal is available on the 42mm case with a small/medium band. It also only includes GPS and four colorways: the Jet Black and Space Gray aluminum cases with a Black sport band, the Rose Gold aluminum case with a Light Blush sport band and the Silver aluminum case with a Purple Fog sport band. Check out our coverage of the <a data-i13n="cpos:5;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/deals/best-apple-deals-150020110.html">best Apple deals</a> for more discounts, and follow <a data-i13n="cpos:6;pos:1" href="https://twitter.com/EngadgetDeals">@EngadgetDeals</a> on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-apple-watch-series-11-is-back-on-sale-for-299-151616498.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

Stranger Things: Tales From ‘85 hits Netflix on April 23

Feb 2, 2026

The latest iPad mini is $100 off right now

We've finally made it to February, but, with the ongoing long nights, you might want a pick-me-up to get you through the rest of winter. Take the <a data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:1;pos:1" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0DK3W4YHS&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=19626799-ebb9-4821-a9ee-8598c32b4da3&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=Apple+iPad+mini+with+the+A17+Pro+chip&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL2RwL0IwREszVzRZSFM_dGFnPWdkZ3QwYy0yMCIsImNvbnRlbnRVdWlkIjoiMTk2MjY3OTktZWJiOS00ODIxLWE5ZWUtODU5OGMzMmI0ZGEzIiwib3JpZ2luYWxVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL2RwL0IwREszVzRZSFMiLCJkeW5hbWljQ2VudHJhbFRyYWNraW5nSWQiOnRydWUsInNpdGVJZCI6InVzLWVuZ2FkZ2V0IiwicGFnZUlkIjoiMXAtYXV0b2xpbmsiLCJmZWF0dXJlSWQiOiJ0ZXh0LWxpbmsifQ&signature=AQAAAXAiWLxnqbl-JwbbQvwwaeCeoD_O2JjTeT6EH3SEAMGI&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fdp%2FB0DK3W4YHS" class="rapid-with-clickid" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DK3W4YHS?th=1">Apple iPad mini with the A17 Pro chip</a>, which is on sale for $400, down from $500. Its small size is perfect for cozying up on the couch or to use on your daily commute.  Apple released this iPad mini in late 2024 and it was a solid update. We gave it an 83 in our review thanks to the power of its <a data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/apple-unveils-a17-pro-a-3nm-chip-powering-iphone-15-pro-182113747.html">A17 Pro chip</a> and that it comes with a minimum of 128GB of storage. The model currently on sale comes with 128GB, Wi-Fi and all four color options: Blue, Purple, Space Gray and Starlight.  <core-commerce id="7ca995501a4d4c0cb0c5166fd605d775" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DK3YF38G?th=1"></core-commerce> We named the Apple iPad mini <a data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/best-ipads-how-to-pick-the-best-apple-tablet-for-you-150054066.html">our favorite compact iPad</a> — though, to be fair, its only competitor is itself. Still, it's a good iPad with an 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display, Apple Intelligence and 12MP Wide back and 12MP Ultra Wide cameras. For 20 percent off, it's a great option for a light, useful way to entertain yourself through the rest of winter and beyond.  Check out our coverage of the <a data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/deals/best-apple-deals-150020110.html">best Apple deals</a> for more discounts, and follow <a data-i13n="cpos:5;pos:1" href="https://twitter.com/EngadgetDeals">@EngadgetDeals</a> on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-latest-ipad-mini-is-100-off-right-now-140900983.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

Get up to 20 percent off Sonos home theater gear before Super Bowl 2026

It's big-game season, which means it's a good time to look for home theater gear on sale ahead of Super Bowl 2026. There are plenty of <a data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/deals/super-bowl-2026-tv-deals-the-best-sales-on-oleds-and-other-smart-tvs-ahead-of-kickoff-160000929.html">Super Bowl TV deals</a> to consider, but if you have arguably the most important piece of the puzzle down, you may want to upgrade your sound system instead. Sonos' latest sale may have just what you need; a bunch of the company's home theater gear is up to 20 percent off right now. You can save $130 on the <a data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Sonos;elmt:;cpos:2;pos:1" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=1e71dc69-0ad7-47e7-abf5-dc3926557fa3&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=d95ac4b9-448d-4c43-906a-61793dfa0aef&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Sonos&linkText=Beam+%28Gen+2%29+soundbar&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5zb25vcy5jb20vZW4tdXMvc2hvcC9iZWFtLWJsYWNrIiwiY29udGVudFV1aWQiOiJkOTVhYzRiOS00NDhkLTRjNDMtOTA2YS02MTc5M2RmYTBhZWYiLCJvcmlnaW5hbFVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnNvbm9zLmNvbS9lbi11cy9zaG9wL2JlYW0tYmxhY2sifQ&signature=AQAAAYo2p8q074Nyj6flkEcA4fkySk5dT1z_RtdW4IvPW7RD&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sonos.com%2Fen-us%2Fshop%2Fbeam-black" class="rapid-with-clickid" data-original-link="https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/beam-black">Beam (Gen 2) soundbar</a>, bringing its price down to $369, and you'll also find deals on the flagship Arc Ultra soundbar, subwoofers, and more. The <a data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/sonos-beam-gen-2-review-dolby-atmos-soundbar-130024506.html">Sonos Beam</a> is the company's sub-$500 soundbar. Engadget's pick for the <a data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/audio/speakers/best-soundbars-143041791.html">best midrange model</a>, the compact speaker has impressive sound for its size. Part of that is its Dolby Atmos support. Although the soundbar lacks upward-firing speakers, it uses software tricks to compensate. Audio timing and frequency adjustments make sound seem to come from the side or slightly above. <core-commerce id="8744c79627d048b9bd770a723f9716e9" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/beam-black"></core-commerce> One of the biggest drawbacks is that the Beam only has one HDMI port. Regardless, that compromise may be easier to accept at Beam's current $369 than at its usual $499. Several more home theater speakers are included in Sonos's sale. If you have a loftier budget for a soundbar, there's the <a data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Sonos;elmt:;cpos:5;pos:1" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=1e71dc69-0ad7-47e7-abf5-dc3926557fa3&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=d95ac4b9-448d-4c43-906a-61793dfa0aef&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Sonos&linkText=Arc+Ultra&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5zb25vcy5jb20vZW4tdXMvc2hvcC9hcmMtdWx0cmEtYmxhY2siLCJjb250ZW50VXVpZCI6ImQ5NWFjNGI5LTQ0OGQtNGM0My05MDZhLTYxNzkzZGZhMGFlZiIsIm9yaWdpbmFsVXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc29ub3MuY29tL2VuLXVzL3Nob3AvYXJjLXVsdHJhLWJsYWNrIn0&signature=AQAAAXqjvz1i9r8tTwP2hrpMo8qYX0wteq7o1pGntTljXkXU&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sonos.com%2Fen-us%2Fshop%2Farc-ultra-black" class="rapid-with-clickid" data-original-link="https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/arc-ultra-black">Arc Ultra</a>. Typically $1,099, it's now $899. The company's pair of subwoofers is included as well. You can get the <a data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Sonos;elmt:;cpos:6;pos:1" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=1e71dc69-0ad7-47e7-abf5-dc3926557fa3&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=d95ac4b9-448d-4c43-906a-61793dfa0aef&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Sonos&linkText=Sub+Mini&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5zb25vcy5jb20vZW4tdXMvc2hvcC9zdWItbWluaS1ibGFjayIsImNvbnRlbnRVdWlkIjoiZDk1YWM0YjktNDQ4ZC00YzQzLTkwNmEtNjE3OTNkZmEwYWVmIiwib3JpZ2luYWxVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5zb25vcy5jb20vZW4tdXMvc2hvcC9zdWItbWluaS1ibGFjayJ9&signature=AQAAAeBTencNEddblWh3yMFHXpNEPEhmESZshU4MaWobvsH7&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sonos.com%2Fen-us%2Fshop%2Fsub-mini-black" class="rapid-with-clickid" data-original-link="https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/sub-mini-black">Sub Mini</a> for $399 (down from $499) or the <a data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Sonos;elmt:;cpos:7;pos:1" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=1e71dc69-0ad7-47e7-abf5-dc3926557fa3&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=d95ac4b9-448d-4c43-906a-61793dfa0aef&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Sonos&linkText=Sub+4&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5zb25vcy5jb20vZW4tdXMvc2hvcC9zdWItNC1ibGFjayIsImNvbnRlbnRVdWlkIjoiZDk1YWM0YjktNDQ4ZC00YzQzLTkwNmEtNjE3OTNkZmEwYWVmIiwib3JpZ2luYWxVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5zb25vcy5jb20vZW4tdXMvc2hvcC9zdWItNC1ibGFjayJ9&signature=AQAAATE84w0dCAXTsu5IqFXMx1skqxzpyH8qjJy8ScCRc-Tu&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sonos.com%2Fen-us%2Fshop%2Fsub-4-black" class="rapid-with-clickid" data-original-link="https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/sub-4-black">Sub 4</a> for $759 (from $899). Although they aren't explicitly sold as home theater products, the <a data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Sonos;elmt:;cpos:8;pos:1" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=1e71dc69-0ad7-47e7-abf5-dc3926557fa3&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=d95ac4b9-448d-4c43-906a-61793dfa0aef&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Sonos&linkText=Era+100&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5zb25vcy5jb20vZW4tdXMvc2hvcC9lcmEtMTAwLWJsYWNrIiwiY29udGVudFV1aWQiOiJkOTVhYzRiOS00NDhkLTRjNDMtOTA2YS02MTc5M2RmYTBhZWYiLCJvcmlnaW5hbFVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnNvbm9zLmNvbS9lbi11cy9zaG9wL2VyYS0xMDAtYmxhY2sifQ&signature=AQAAAQYUyuzuja1xFCbLyzHFEoIX17xQK2NgKqhOfxsezj9H&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sonos.com%2Fen-us%2Fshop%2Fera-100-black" class="rapid-with-clickid" data-original-link="https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/era-100-black">Era 100</a> ($179) and <a data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Sonos;elmt:;cpos:9;pos:1" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=1e71dc69-0ad7-47e7-abf5-dc3926557fa3&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=d95ac4b9-448d-4c43-906a-61793dfa0aef&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Sonos&linkText=Era+300&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5zb25vcy5jb20vZW4tdXMvc2hvcC9lcmEtMzAwLWJsYWNrIiwiY29udGVudFV1aWQiOiJkOTVhYzRiOS00NDhkLTRjNDMtOTA2YS02MTc5M2RmYTBhZWYiLCJvcmlnaW5hbFVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnNvbm9zLmNvbS9lbi11cy9zaG9wL2VyYS0zMDAtYmxhY2sifQ&signature=AQAAAcGjaYC5X0KyWH-0-tqMZWjphRJ9mGygYnSP_0jejK__&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sonos.com%2Fen-us%2Fshop%2Fera-300-black" class="rapid-with-clickid" data-original-link="https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/era-300-black">Era 300</a> ($379) are also included in the sale. The portable Move 2 isn't discounted individually, but you will find it in a couple of <a data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Sonos;elmt:;cpos:10;pos:1" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=1e71dc69-0ad7-47e7-abf5-dc3926557fa3&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=d95ac4b9-448d-4c43-906a-61793dfa0aef&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Sonos&linkText=bundles&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5zb25vcy5jb20vZW4tdXMvc2hvcC9pbmRvb3Itb3V0ZG9vci1zZXQtZXJhLTEwMC1tb3ZlLTItYmxhY2siLCJjb250ZW50VXVpZCI6ImQ5NWFjNGI5LTQ0OGQtNGM0My05MDZhLTYxNzkzZGZhMGFlZiIsIm9yaWdpbmFsVXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc29ub3MuY29tL2VuLXVzL3Nob3AvaW5kb29yLW91dGRvb3Itc2V0LWVyYS0xMDAtbW92ZS0yLWJsYWNrIn0&signature=AQAAAazJrF2Be72-Y1Ysq7H4mtlKLpYoQNUvJPhc2FwGI26X&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sonos.com%2Fen-us%2Fshop%2Findoor-outdoor-set-era-100-move-2-black" class="rapid-with-clickid" data-original-link="https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/indoor-outdoor-set-era-100-move-2-black">bundles</a>. You can check out <a data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Sonos;elmt:;cpos:11;pos:1" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=1e71dc69-0ad7-47e7-abf5-dc3926557fa3&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=d95ac4b9-448d-4c43-906a-61793dfa0aef&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Sonos&linkText=the+sale+page&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5zb25vcy5jb20vZW4tdXMvc2hvcC9wcm9tb3Rpb25hbC1vZmZlcnMiLCJjb250ZW50VXVpZCI6ImQ5NWFjNGI5LTQ0OGQtNGM0My05MDZhLTYxNzkzZGZhMGFlZiIsIm9yaWdpbmFsVXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc29ub3MuY29tL2VuLXVzL3Nob3AvcHJvbW90aW9uYWwtb2ZmZXJzIn0&signature=AQAAAbwiorcdWl9uErnG1G7vceJpOpL8_OOwz5M1Twt5nx5y&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sonos.com%2Fen-us%2Fshop%2Fpromotional-offers" class="rapid-with-clickid" data-original-link="https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/promotional-offers">the sale page</a> for the complete list. Follow <a data-i13n="cpos:12;pos:1" href="https://twitter.com/EngadgetDeals">@EngadgetDeals</a> on X for the latest <a data-i13n="cpos:13;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/deals/">tech deals</a> and <a data-i13n="cpos:14;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/best-tech/">buying advice</a>.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/get-up-to-20-percent-off-sonos-home-theater-gear-before-super-bowl-2026-174053382.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

Anker's 45W Nano charger with smart display is $10 off

Feb 2, 2026

The 512GB Samsung P9 microSD Express card is 33 percent off right now

MicroSD Express cards are still a little hard to find, considering they're pretty new and only really started becoming popular last year once the Switch 2 came out. These upgraded versions of microSD cards are the only ones compatible with the Switch 2 for expanding its storage, os if you're already starting to feel the crunch on your console, it's worth picking one up. <a data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:1;pos:1" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0FT995SPF&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=b7c1c9b1-8762-4b3b-bd34-558e13eba66f&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=Samsung%27s+P9+microSD+Express+card&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL1NhbXN1bmctRXhwcmVzcy1taWNyb1NEWEMtTmludGVuZG8tU3dpdGNoLUFNL2RwL0IwRlQ5OTVTUEY_dGFnPWdkZ3QwYy0yMCIsImNvbnRlbnRVdWlkIjoiYjdjMWM5YjEtODc2Mi00YjNiLWJkMzQtNTU4ZTEzZWJhNjZmIiwib3JpZ2luYWxVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5hbWF6b24uY29tL1NhbXN1bmctRXhwcmVzcy1taWNyb1NEWEMtTmludGVuZG8tU3dpdGNoLUFNL2RwL0IwRlQ5OTVTUEYiLCJkeW5hbWljQ2VudHJhbFRyYWNraW5nSWQiOnRydWUsInNpdGVJZCI6InVzLWVuZ2FkZ2V0IiwicGFnZUlkIjoiMXAtYXV0b2xpbmsiLCJmZWF0dXJlSWQiOiJ0ZXh0LWxpbmsifQ&signature=AQAAAT_twTWcajbKqdvcyEBHoh5RgsQUOS3jFfNNm7DTjYub&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FSamsung-Express-microSDXC-Nintendo-Switch-AM%2Fdp%2FB0FT995SPF" class="rapid-with-clickid" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Express-microSDXC-Nintendo-Switch-AM/dp/B0FT995SPF?th=1">Samsung's P9 microSD Express card</a> is on sale right now — you can grab the 512GB version of $80, which is 33 percent off and one of the best prices we've seen. The P9 boasts transfer speeds of up to 800MB/s, making moving games to the card that much faster. As for load times, in our testing we found that any microSD Express, the standard the <a data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/switch-2/">Switch 2</a> requires, will offer roughly the same performance. This format is pretty new, so there aren't a ton of cards on the market. As such, the P9 makes our list of <a data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/best-microsd-cards-for-nintendo-switch-2-160052947.html">best microSD cards</a> for the Nintendo Switch 2. The P9 microSD Express is also compatible with the Steam Deck or any other gaming console that accepts the format, as well as cameras and more. <core-commerce id="91bfde4ef7fd4c03825d95a9012acdc5" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Express-microSDXC-Nintendo-Switch-AM/dp/B0FT995SPF?th=1"></core-commerce> Follow <a data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1" href="https://twitter.com/EngadgetDeals">@EngadgetDeals</a> on X for the latest <a data-i13n="cpos:5;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/deals/">tech deals</a> and <a data-i13n="cpos:6;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/best-tech/">buying advice</a>.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-512gb-samsung-p9-microsd-express-card-is-33-percent-off-right-now-143849000.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

TikTok says it's 'back to normal' after winter storm-related outages

TikTok is finally "<a data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1" href="https://usdsjv.tiktok.com/Technical-issues-impacting-TikTok-US-service">back to normal</a>" in the US after days of technical issues and outages tied to winter storms. Less than a week after companies like Oracle took <a data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/tiktok-finalizes-deal-for-its-us-entity-010543484.html">ownership of TikTok's domestic operations</a>, the platform faced a major power outage when one of its primary US data center sites — run by Oracle — got taken down by the storm.  The problems started last Monday, January 26, when TikTok announced it was working on a "major infrastructure issue" and warned of bugs, time-out requests, missing earnings, and more. The next day TikTok shared that progress has been made but there were still some issues. It added, "Creators may temporarily see '0' views or likes on videos, and your earnings may look like they're missing. This is a display error caused by server timeouts; your actual data and engagement are safe." Then, yesterday, February 1, TikTok claimed the problem was straightened out and that users shouldn't experience any more related issues. "We're sorry about the issues experienced by our U.S. community. We appreciate how much you count on TikTok to create, discover, and connect with what matters to you," the platform stated in its update. "Thank you for your patience and understanding." A number of US users have <a data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/social-media/people-are-uninstalling-tiktok-and-downloading-an-indie-competitor-233345222.html">uninstalled TikTok</a> in response to its new ownership and technical issues. Some users also claimed that TikTok was censoring what they could post or what others saw. For instance, <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:4;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/01/tiktok-first-week#">The Guardian reports</a> that many people faced issues sharing videos about ICE agents killing Alex Pretti and general anti-ICE content.  On January 26, analytics firm <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:5;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/26/tiktok-uninstalls-are-up-150percent-following-us-joint-venture.html">Sensor Tower told CNBC</a> that uninstalls of the app had increased by over 150 percent during the five days since its change in ownership, when compared to the three months before. At the same time, independent app and competitor <a data-i13n="cpos:6;pos:1" href="https://upscrolled.com/en/">UpScrolled</a> saw a surge in downloads. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/tiktok-says-its-back-to-normal-after-winter-storm-related-outages-114848212.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

The best noise-canceling earbuds for 2026

Noise-canceling earbuds have become an everyday essential for a lot of people, whether you’re trying to survive a noisy commute, concentrate in a shared workspace or just carve out a little quiet time. Advances in active noise cancellation and audio processing mean today’s best earbuds do a much better job of cutting through background noise, without forcing you to move up to bulky over-ear headphones. The latest models also balance sound quality with convenience, offering stable Bluetooth connections, comfortable fits and battery life that can last through a full day with help from their charging cases. From premium options with the strongest ANC to more affordable picks that still get the basics right, there’s no shortage of solid choices depending on what you value most. <h2 id="jump-link-best-noise-cancelling-earbuds-for-2026">Best noise-cancelling earbuds for 2026</h2> <core-commerce id="3bbabf7f38d94041a7e0315958dcebad" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.bose.com/p/earbuds/bose-quietcomfort-ultra-earbuds-2nd-gen/QCUE2-HEADPHONEIN.html"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="92d9459d46f345d286b10b988205d0b5" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Sony-WF-1000XM5-Bluetooth-Canceling-Headphones/dp/B0C33XXS56/"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="0e369322b3ad4e5388b41a6fab332684" data-type="product-list"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="6f9fc19bc6424711aff30e1948303dfa" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.masterdynamic.com/products/mw09?"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="efe16c415b8b481bb623e8691907e7ab" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Cancellation-Translation-Headphones-High-Fidelity/dp/B0FQFB8FMG"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="08aee650e8844328b20dd9d26f73d591" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Bose-QuietComfort-Cancelling-Lifestyle-Cancellation/dp/B0D8BZDPXB"></core-commerce> <h2 id="jump-link-how-to-choose-the-best-noise-canceling-earbuds-for-you">How to choose the best noise-canceling earbuds for you</h2> <h3 id="jump-link-design">Design</h3> Most true wireless earbuds these days have a “traditional” design that’s a round bud that fits in your ear canals. However, there are some variations on the formula in terms of shape, size and additional fitting elements. Some companies include fins or fit wings to help hold their in-ear earbuds in place while others opt for an over-the-ear hook on more <a data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/best-headphones-for-running-120044637.html">sporty models</a>. You’ll want to pay attention to these things to make sure they align with how you plan to use them. Also consider overall size and weight since those two factors can impact the fit. A less-than-ideal seal due to a weird fit will affect the performance of active noise-canceling earbuds. <h3 id="jump-link-type-of-noise-cancellation">Type of noise cancellation</h3> Next, you’ll want to look at the type of ANC a set of earbuds offer. You’ll see terms like “hybrid active noise cancellation” or “hybrid adaptive active noise cancellation,” and there are key differences between the two. A hybrid ANC setup uses microphones on the inside and the outside of the device to detect ambient noise. By analyzing input from both mics, a hybrid system can combat more sounds than “regular” ANC, but it’s at a constant level that doesn’t change. Adaptive ANC takes the hybrid configuration a step further by continuously adjusting the noise cancellation for changes in your environment and any leakage around the padding of the ear cups or ear tips. Adaptive ANC is also better at combating wind noise, which can really kill your vibe while using earbuds outdoors. For this top pick list of the best noise-canceling earbuds, I’m only considering products with hybrid ANC or adaptive ANC setups because those are the most effective at blocking noise in noisy environments. <h3 id="jump-link-customization">Customization</h3> You’ll also want to check to see if the ANC system on a prospective set of earbuds offers presets or adjustable levels of noise reduction. These can help you dial in the amount of ANC you need for various environments, but it can also help save battery life. Master & Dynamic, for example, has ANC presets that either provide maximum noise-blocking or prioritize energy efficiency. Other companies may include a slider in their companion apps that let you adjust the ANC level. <h2 id="jump-link-how-we-test-noise-canceling-earbuds">How we test noise-canceling earbuds</h2> The primary way we test earbuds is to wear them as much as possible. I prefer to do this over a one-to-two-week period, but sometimes deadlines don’t allow it. During this time, I listen to a mix of music and <a data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/podcasts/">podcasts</a>, while also using the earbuds to take both voice and video calls. Since battery life for ANC earbuds is typically 6-10 hours, I drain the battery with looping music and the volume set at a comfortable level (usually around 75 percent). When necessary, I’ll power the headphones off during a review without putting them back in the case. This simulates real-world use and keeps me from having to wear them for an entire day. To test ANC performance specifically, I use the earbuds in a variety of environments, from noisy coffee shops to quiet home offices. When my schedule allows, I also use them during air travel, since plane noise is a massive distraction to both work and relaxation. Even if I’m not slated to hop on a flight, I simulate a constant roar with white noise machines, bathroom fans, vacuums and more. I also make note of how well earbuds block human voices, which are a key stumbling block for a lot of ANC setups. I also do a thorough review of companion apps, testing each feature as I work through the software. Any holdovers from previous models are double-checked for improvements or regression. If the earbuds I’m testing are an updated version of a previous model, I’ll spend time getting reacquainted with the older set, and revisit the closest competition as well.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/best-noise-canceling-earbuds-150026857.html?src=rss

Feb 2, 2026

The best projector for a home theater in 2026

To see a film the way the creators intended, you really need a projector. A good one can show a bright, sharp image up to 250 inches in size for an immersive experience that no TV can match — and usually at a much lower price. Plus, they’re great for immersive gaming with consoles and PCs. Thanks to companies like Anker and Valerion, projectors are starting to be seen as a must-have item for cinephiles and outdoor party screenings alike. That means there are a wide variety of choices, ranging from classic ceiling-mounted models to battery-powered projectors you can take on a camping trick. You can also choose from dozens of ultra short throw (UST) models for a more TV-like installation. But compared to TVs, projectors remain a bit more confusing for a majority of buyers. This guide will fill you in on important details to consider like brightness, type (classic, portable and ultra short throw) and other factors to help you choose the best model for your setup. <h2 id="jump-link-best-projectors-for-2026">Best projectors for 2026</h2> Some projectors are for serious cinephiles, projecting sharp 4K video with HDR brightness and hyper realistic colors to a large screen. Others are bright enough to replace your TV for sports or gaming, and some low-cost portable models can be set up for camping or outdoor fun. That’s why we’ve divided this guide into several categories to help you find the right one. <core-commerce id="6f3c48fa98594eed81f610b1b5e59f37" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/NEBULA-Triple-Projector-Nebulamaster-Lumens/dp/B0DYV2CGTK/"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="37a7a36cd9604fce92a7ed66fe5747da" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Epson-Projector-Brightness-Streaming-Theater/dp/B0FHT7MZW2/ref=sr_1_3?th=1"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="80ef739dd2b7407aa1e912a74f8f0fab" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Valerion-VisionMaster-Max-Projector-Speckle-Reduction/dp/B0FQNXHVGS/ref=sr_1_1"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="d34ff66758f2468682711797f0e9c058" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Hisense-Laser-PX3-PRO-Projector-Contrast/dp/B0DGHZ1C8V?th=1"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="abb18e77e5ba4460af6175d9f030c1ca" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Formovie-Cinema-Projector-Built-Soundbar/dp/B0DDTXVJN6?th=1"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="82c02fc6ce9a4cccbab689c41cc1b1c9" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/Projector-Portable-Autofocus-120-Inch-Playtime/dp/B0BCWNQPQ7?th=1"></core-commerce> <core-commerce id="a1b89a7f4bdd4762b345b522f1658454" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/ViewSonic-Projector-Keystone-Streaming-PX701-4K/dp/B08L9SM2DK?th=1"></core-commerce> <h2 id="jump-link-what-to-consider-when-buying-a-projector">What to consider when buying a projector</h2> For a deep dive on projector technology check my <a data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/2019-09-25-the-best-projector-in-2019.html">previous explainer</a>, but there are few key things to keep in mind. What will the projector mainly be used for? What type of room will it be used in? And how big of an image do you want? You’ll also see a variety of specifications that may be confusing, so here are a few to consider and what they mean. <h3 id="jump-link-brightness-and-contrast">Brightness and contrast</h3> Brightness is measured in ANSI lumens; the brighter the projector, typically the more expensive it will be. 1,500-2,500 lumens is good for darkened rooms, 3,000-4,000 lumens allows you to see with some ambient light and 4,000+ lumens is bright enough to use in direct sunlight. High contrast is important for detail, because projectors are more sensitive to things like ambient light and reflections. Laser projectors offer the most brightness and they are entering the mainstream with models costing well under $2,000. Below that, you’re looking at projectors with bulbs. Aside from brightness, laser projectors have an advantage in that the light source lasts 10,000 hours or more, compared to 2,000 hours maximum for bulb projectors. <h3 id="jump-link-dlp-vs-lcd">DLP vs LCD</h3> Digital light processing units (DLPs) used by Optoma, BenQ, LG and others allow bright 4K images. The negative is that they can produce a “rainbow” effect, or red/blue/green artifacts that affect some viewers more than others. LCDs are used mainly by Epson, but also Sony and Sanyo. Those are often brighter, more color accurate and don’t produce rainbow effects, but are also more expensive and susceptible to image degradation over time. <h3 id="jump-link-resolution">Resolution</h3> If you want a true 4K projector, beware: only expensive models have native 4K resolution (many movie theaters still use <a data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1" href="https://www.screendaily.com/features/the-resolution-war-is-cinema-falling-behind-home-entertainment-on-innovation/5124023.article">2K projectors</a> for <a data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/2019-06-19-upscaled-uhd-4k-digital-intermediate-explainer.html">various reasons</a>). However, most DLP projectors and some LCD models can use pixel-shifting to attain 4K resolution. <h3 id="jump-link-hdr-and-color-accuracy">HDR and color accuracy</h3> Projectors can’t produce anywhere close to the amount of light required to qualify as true HDR. Rather, they use a technique called <a data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1" href="https://www.projectorreviews.com/terms/tone-mapping/">tone mapping</a> to fit the entire HDR gamut into a lower brightness range. That said, many projectors can display millions of colors, with some models surpassing the color accuracy of TVs and monitors. <h3 id="jump-link-ust-vs-classic">UST vs. classic</h3> Classic projectors and screens can be mounted on the ceiling so they’re great if you have no floor space. They can also project a larger video for a truly cinematic experience. UST projectors mount on the floor right next to the screen so they can take the place of a TV. They don’t beam as big an image but are generally brighter, sharper and more expensive. For best results, they require special screens. <figure> <img src="https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2021-04/34181c50-92ea-11eb-99db-e05de4751f8f" alt="Elite Starling motorized screen" data-uuid="ad0578a3-0b4c-3b2c-9811-39c0d2eca07f"> <figcaption></figcaption> <div class="photo-credit"> Elite Starling </div> </figure> <h3 id="jump-link-mounting-and-fan-noise">Mounting and fan noise</h3> Ceiling mounting requires some work and don’t forget to budget for a bracket and any necessary long cables, including extra power for a Google Chromecast or other streaming device. UST projectors require less labor, but getting the image perfectly square can still be surprisingly time-consuming. As for fan noise, some projectors (usually cheaper DLP models) generate more than others. <h3 id="jump-link-optics">Optics</h3> For more flexibility with location and image size, ceiling mounted projectors need a good zoom range. Lens shift, meanwhile, is used if the projector is mounted higher or lower relative to the screen than recommended by the manufacturer. Otherwise, you might have to use a "keystone correction" to digitally stretch part of the image, resulting in distortion or artifacts. Also, keystore correction may not work in gaming modes for some models. <h3 id="jump-link-gaming-and-streaming">Gaming and streaming</h3> If you’re interested in a projector for gaming, look up the refresh rate and input lag figures. Some projectors offer good numbers in that regard (240Hz and <20 ms, respectively), but others designed for home entertainment have very poor input lag and refresh rates at just 60 Hz. If it’s streaming you want, be sure to pick a model either with built-in Google TV or a bundled streaming dongle. <h3 id="jump-link-screens">Screens</h3> Should you project onto a wall, roll-down screen, fixed screen or ambient light rejecting (ALR) screen? The choice depends largely on the room and what kind of projector you have. Roll down screens take up no space as they’re ceiling mounted, fixed screens can be moved easily and ALR models are perfect in rooms with a lot of ambient light. <h2 id="jump-link-best-projector-faqs">Best projector FAQs</h2> <h3 id="jump-link-are-4k-projectors-better">Are 4K projectors better?</h3> Yes, because higher resolution is more noticeable on larger screens, so 4K is particularly useful with projectors since they beam images up to 200 inches in size. That being said, brightness and contrast are more important. <h3 id="jump-link-is-a-projector-better-than-a-tv">Is a projector better than a TV?</h3> Projectors can provide a more immersive experience thanks to the large screen, but they’re not necessarily “better.” Since you usually have to dim the lights with a projector, TVs are superior for everyday use. <h3 id="jump-link-is-2000-lumens-bright-enough-for-a-projector">Is 2000 lumens bright enough for a projector?</h3> Yes, 2000 lumens is easily bright enough, even with some ambient light in the room. However, the image will still be hard to see with the windows open on a bright day. <h3 id="jump-link-should-i-get-a-4k-or-1080p-projector">Should I get a 4K or 1080p projector?</h3> That depends on your budget and needs. If your budget is below $1,000, look for a 1080p projector with the best brightness and contrast. Between $1,000-$2,000, you’ll need to weigh whether brightness or 4K resolution is most important. Above that, choose the brightest 4K projector you can afford. <h3 id="jump-link-what-are-the-best-projectors-in-daylight">What are the best projectors in daylight?</h3> The best projectors in daylight are ultra short throw (UST) models, as they have the brightest and sharpest image. However, they generally cost more than $2,000. <h3 id="jump-link-do-you-need-a-screen-for-a-better-projector-experience">Do you need a screen for a better projector experience?</h3> Technically, you don’t need a screen to use a projector — any light-colored, smooth wall can work in a pinch. But if you want to get the most out of your projector, a screen can make a difference. Projector screens are designed to reflect light evenly and enhance contrast, so colors look more vibrant and the picture appears sharper. With a screen, you’ll notice darker blacks and brighter colors, which can give a real boost to your movie nights or gaming sessions. So while you can absolutely enjoy a projector without one, a screen can make the experience feel a bit more like your own personal theater. <h3 id="jump-link-should-i-buy-a-portable-or-home-projector">Should I buy a portable or home projector?</h3> It depends on how and where you plan to use it. If you want a projector you can easily move around, bring to friends’ houses or set up indoors or outdoors easily, a portable projector is a great choice. They’re usually smaller, lightweight and often have built-in speakers and batteries, making them convenient for on-the-go use. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a more permanent setup for a home theater or living room, a home projector might be the way to go. Home projectors tend to be more powerful, with higher resolution and brightness, which gives you that crisp, cinema-quality experience. They’re ideal if you have a dedicated space and don’t mind leaving it set up in one spot.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/home-theater/best-projectors-123004354.html?src=rss

Feb 1, 2026

Apex Legends won't be playable on Nintendo Switch after its next season

Apex Legends developer Respawn said it's ending Nintendo Switch support for the game this summer, with the release of Season 30. After that point, it'll work with the Switch 2 and all other currently supported platforms, but not the original Switch. "Season 29 will be the final update for Apex Legends on Nintendo Switch," the team wrote in a post on X.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" style="width:608px;height:413px;">Hey legends, we want to share an important update about Apex Legends on the Nintendo Switch. Season 29 will be the final update for Apex Legends on Nintendo Switch. Future seasons of Apex Legends will continue to be available on Nintendo Switch 2. - Starting August 4, 2026…— Apex Legends (@PlayApex) <a href="https://twitter.com/PlayApex/status/2017296851247018038?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 30, 2026</a></blockquote> </div>The change will take place on August 4, 2026, so Switch players still have several months left to enjoy Apex Legends on the console and make preparations for their shift to a different platform, if they plan to do so. "All players progress, purchases, and earnings are tied to their individual EA accounts," Respawn said. "Everything that has been earned or purchased, including Apex Coins and cosmetics, will carry over to Nintendo Switch 2, even if you purchase Nintendo Switch 2 after August 4, 2026." The Switch 2 undoubtedly offers a better playing experience for Apex Legends than the earlier model, but the news is still a blow for current Switch 1 players who didn't have plans of upgrading any time soon. Apex Legends first came to Switch in 2021, two years after the game's launch on other platforms.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/apex-legends-wont-be-playable-on-nintendo-switch-after-its-next-season-214153353.html?src=rss

Feb 1, 2026

Apple is already thinking about its second foldable iPhone, and it may be a clamshell

We may not have a concrete release date for the <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:1;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/iphone-fold-rumors-everything-we-know-so-far-including-the-leaked-design-130000516.html">first foldable iPhone</a>, but Apple may already be looking into a smaller device that will follow it up. According to <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:2;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-02-01/apple-s-record-quarter-and-ai-changes-macbook-pro-update-clamshell-iphone-fold">Bloomberg</a>'s Mark Gurman, Apple is exploring a "square, clamshell-style foldable phone," with the caveat that this potential device is "far from guaranteed to reach the market" and only "under consideration" right now. If this eventually leads to a smaller foldable iPhone, that means Apple believes it can compete against existing options on the market, including Samsung's latest <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:3;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/samsung-galaxy-z-flip-7-review-140022250.html">Galaxy Z Flip 7</a> and Motorola's revamped <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:4;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.engadget.com/motorola-razr-2023-review-a-midrange-foldable-that-underwhelms-190025514.html">Razr foldable</a>. Gurman's report also signaled that Apple may be very optimistic about the success of its first <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:5;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/iphone-fold-rumors-everything-we-know-so-far-including-the-leaked-design-130000516.html">foldable iPhone</a>, which is rumored to be released sometime later this year, and wants to have follow-up plans ready to capitalize on the potential demand generated. It's not the first time that we've heard of a <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:6;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.engadget.com/apple-has-reportedly-made-foldable-iphone-prototypes-152804263.html">clamshell foldable iPhone</a>, since a previous report from The Information revealed that Apple created prototypes in this form factor. On the other end of the spectrum, Gurman's Power On newsletter mentioned that Apple is considering a larger foldable that opens like a book. Previously, Gurman said that Apple considered a foldable that's more akin to the size of an iPad. However, the company ran into issues developing such a large device and may be delaying a <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:7;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-21/apple-s-planned-foldable-ipad-with-18-inch-screen-hits-development-snags">potential launch</a> to 2029, according to Gurman.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/apple-is-already-thinking-about-its-second-foldable-iphone-and-it-may-be-a-clamshell-202312700.html?src=rss

Feb 1, 2026

Apple's online store now lets you build a new Mac exactly the way you want

Just like buying a new iPhone through Apple's online store, you now select each spec of your new Mac device when purchasing through the website. As first spotted by <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:1;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.macworld.com/article/3048329/apple-just-completely-changed-how-you-buy-a-new-mac.html">MacWorld</a>, Apple updated its <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:2;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro">online configuration tool</a> for purchasing a Mac. Compared to the previous design that allowed you to pick between several prebuilt options, the new configurator lets you choose one spec after another instead. It's not a major difference compared to choosing between preconfigured options, but interested buyers have more customization since they can select the color, display, chip, memory, storage and even power adapter. The updated page also gives customers the option to add pre-installed apps, like Final Cut Pro or Logic Pro, to their new Mac. The updated configuration design might hint towards the expected release of the upgraded MacBook Pros. According to <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:3;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.macworld.com/article/3030240/m5-pro-max-macbook-pro-performance-speed-graphics-configurations.html">MacWorld</a>, there are rumors that Apple will offer the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips with more flexibility that lets you choose how many CPU and GPU cores you want. As reported by <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:4;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-02-01/apple-s-record-quarter-and-ai-changes-macbook-pro-update-clamshell-iphone-fold">Bloomberg</a>'s Mark Gurman, the latest MacBook Pro could be queued up for a release alongside macOS 26.3, which has a release cycle between February and March.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/apples-online-store-now-lets-you-build-a-new-mac-exactly-the-way-you-want-190430251.html?src=rss

Feb 1, 2026

Indonesia is lifting its ban on Grok, but with some conditions

Grok is once again available in Indonesia, after the country lifted its ban on the AI chatbot that was seen generating millions of <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:1;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/grok-generated-an-estimated-3-million-sexualized-images--including-23000-of-children--over-11-days-175053250.html">sexualized deepfakes</a>, thousands of which included children. The country's Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs released <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:2;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.komdigi.go.id/berita/siaran-pers/detail/kemkomdigi-awasi-ketat-normalisasi-grok-usai-x-sampaikan-komitmen-kepatuhan">a statement</a> earlier today, which said X is allowed to resume service in Indonesia but will be subject to monitoring for any future violations. According to the Indonesian government agency, X provided a letter that detailed several implemented measures that prevent the misuse of its Grok chatbot. Alexander Sabar, the ministry’s director general of digital space supervision, said in the statement that the agency will test the new measures on an ongoing basis and will ban Grok again if it's found spreading illegal content or violating the country's laws regarding children. The issue dates back to earlier this year, when Indonesia, along with Malaysia and the Philippines, <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:3;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg7y10xm4x2o">banned the AI chatbot</a> after it was found producing sexually explicit deepfake images of women and children without their consent in response to user requests. Later that month, the Philippines lifted its ban on Grok, followed by <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:4;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/malaysia-lifts-ban-on-grok-after-taking-x-at-its-word-144457468.html">Malaysia</a> doing the same just a couple of days after. Similar to Indonesia, Malaysian authorities said they will continue to monitor Grok and threatened more enforcement actions if the AI chatbot repeats its past offenses. Beyond the bans, Grok is also facing investigations from California's <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:5;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/california-is-investigating-grok-over-ai-generated-csam-and-nonconsensual-deepfakes-202029635.html">attorney general</a> and the UK's <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:6;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/uk-regulator-ofcom-opens-a-formal-investigation-into-x-over-csam-scandal-120000312.html">media regulator</a> concerning the same issue.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/indonesia-is-lifting-its-ban-on-grok-but-with-some-conditions-175305634.html?src=rss

Feb 1, 2026

How to replace your AirTag battery

<a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/wearables/apples-new-airtag-still-doesnt-have-a-keyring-hole-150540254.html" data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1">Apple’s AirTag</a> is designed to run quietly in the background, helping you keep track of <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/computing/accessories/best-apple-airtag-cases-holders-accessories-123036404.html" data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1">everyday items like keys, bags and luggage</a>. Unlike many small trackers, an AirTag doesn’t need to be charged. Instead, it uses a standard replaceable coin cell battery that typically lasts around a year, depending on usage.When the battery runs low, your iPhone will alert you. Replacing it is a simple process that takes just a few minutes and doesn’t require any tools. This guide explains how to tell when your AirTag battery needs replacing, which battery to use and how to swap it safely.<h2 id="jump-link-how-to-replace-the-battery-in-your-airtag">How to replace the battery in your AirTag</h2>Replacing the battery only takes a few steps.<ol><li>Hold the AirTag with the polished stainless steel side facing up. </li><li>Press down firmly on the metal battery cover and rotate it counterclockwise. Continue turning until the cover stops moving.</li><li>Lift off the cover and remove the old battery.</li><li>Insert a new <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=66ea567a-c987-4c2e-a2ff-02904efde6ea&itemId=amazon_B0787K2XWZ&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=b805838c-65ab-4661-8dc2-975de9900fc6&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Amazon&linkText=CR2032+battery&custData=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&signature=AQAAAd7ZQapWpiJiYoXbzvBQ0OZd_GsOAeBoWceYFPS-b44A&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FAmazon-Basics-CR2032-Compatible-Mercury-Free%2Fdp%2FB0787K2XWZ%2F" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Amazon;elmt:;cpos:3;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Basics-CR2032-Compatible-Mercury-Free/dp/B0787K2XWZ/">CR2032 battery</a> with the positive (+) side facing up. Once the battery is seated correctly, the AirTag will emit a brief chime, confirming that power has been restored.</li><li>Place the battery cover back onto the AirTag. Align the three small tabs on the cover with the matching slots on the AirTag body.</li><li>Press down gently and rotate the cover clockwise until it stops. The cover should sit flush with the AirTag and feel secure once locked into place.</li></ol>No pairing or setup steps are required after replacing the battery. Your AirTag will automatically reconnect to your Apple ID.<h2 id="jump-link-when-to-replace-your-airtag-battery">When to replace your AirTag battery</h2>Your iPhone will automatically notify you when an AirTag battery is running low. The alert appears as a notification and doesn’t interrupt tracking, but it’s a good idea to replace the battery quickly to avoid losing location updates.If you’re unsure whether your AirTag battery needs replacing, open the Find My app, tap the Items tab and select your AirTag. If a message appears under the AirTag name stating “Low Battery”, you’ll know it needs replacing. If no message appears, it’s safe to assume the battery level is fine for now. AirTags don’t have a screen or any other battery indicator, but Apple does show a battery percentage for AirTags in the FindMy app. The low battery warning is the only signal Apple provides before replacement becomes necessary.<h2 id="jump-link-what-to-do-if-your-airtag-doesnt-make-a-sound">What to do if your AirTag doesn’t make a sound</h2>If you don’t hear a sound after inserting the new battery, remove it and check that it’s oriented correctly with the positive side facing up. You should also secure the back cover onto the AirTag as well, to see if the chime sounds after that.If the battery is oriented properly and still doesn’t trigger a sound, try a different CR2032 battery. AirTag uses a CR2032 lithium 3V coin battery, a common type available at most electronics stores, supermarkets and pharmacies. Some batteries, particularly those with thick coatings, may not make consistent contact. Apple suggests looking for packaging that states “Compatible with AirTag.” Once a working battery is installed, the AirTag should resume normal operation immediately.<h2 id="jump-link-how-often-should-you-replace-your-airtag-battery">How often should you replace your AirTag battery</h2>Most AirTag batteries last about a year under typical use. Frequent use of Precision Finding, sound playback or location updates may reduce battery life. iOS will notify you before the battery is fully depleted, so there’s no need to replace it preemptively unless you’re preparing for long-term travel or storage.Used coin batteries should not be thrown in household trash. Many retailers and recycling centers accept lithium batteries for proper disposal. Check local recycling guidelines for battery drop-off locations. Storing used batteries in a secure container until they can be recycled helps reduce the risk of accidental contact or ingestion.Replacing an AirTag battery is one of the simplest maintenance tasks Apple devices require. With a readily available battery and no tools involved, most users can complete the process in under a minute. As long as you pay attention to low battery notifications and follow basic safety precautions, your AirTag should continue tracking your belongings reliably with minimal effort.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/accessories/how-to-replace-your-airtag-battery-130000463.html?src=rss

Jan 31, 2026

NVIDIA is still planning to make a 'huge' investment in OpenAI, CEO says

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang told reporters that the company will "invest a great deal of money" in OpenAI's latest funding round, according to <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-31/nvidia-to-join-openai-s-current-funding-round-huang-says" data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1">Bloomberg</a>, after <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=2f007401-3eaa-4237-b69b-54ccbe125502&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=07237b44-9b41-430b-9f97-9ce38adb5588&featureId=text-link&merchantName=The+Wall+Street+Journal&linkText=The+Wall+Street+Journal&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy53c2ouY29tL3RlY2gvYWkvdGhlLTEwMC1iaWxsaW9uLW1lZ2FkZWFsLWJldHdlZW4tb3BlbmFpLWFuZC1udmlkaWEtaXMtb24taWNlLWFhMzAyNWUzP3N0PXFIODJiVCIsImNvbnRlbnRVdWlkIjoiMDcyMzdiNDQtOWI0MS00MzBiLTlmOTctOWNlMzhhZGI1NTg4Iiwib3JpZ2luYWxVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy53c2ouY29tL3RlY2gvYWkvdGhlLTEwMC1iaWxsaW9uLW1lZ2FkZWFsLWJldHdlZW4tb3BlbmFpLWFuZC1udmlkaWEtaXMtb24taWNlLWFhMzAyNWUzP3N0PXFIODJiVCJ9&signature=AQAAAVC4_nHWW40-N00b0_UEtgCAPW3tb8Xo73L78A6sC9b3&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Ftech%2Fai%2Fthe-100-billion-megadeal-between-openai-and-nvidia-is-on-ice-aa3025e3%3Fst%3DqH82bT" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:The Wall Street Journal;elmt:;cpos:2;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/the-100-billion-megadeal-between-openai-and-nvidia-is-on-ice-aa3025e3?st=qH82bT">The Wall Street Journal</a> on Friday reported that the two companies were rethinking a previous $100 billion deal that hasn't "progressed beyond the early stages" of negotiations. Speaking to reporters in Taipei this weekend, Huang reportedly said it could be "the largest investment we've ever made." NVIDIA and OpenAI jointly announced in September that NVIDIA would be <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/nvidia-is-investing-up-to-100-billion-in-openai-to-build-10-gigawatts-of-ai-data-centers-175159134.html" data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1">investing up to $100 billion</a> in OpenAI to build 10 gigawatts of AI data centers. The companies said then that they were targeting the second half of 2026 for the first phase of the project to go online. Citing sources familiar with the discussions, The Wall Street Journal reported that Huang has highlighted privately that the agreement was nonbinding and has criticized OpenAI's business approach as lacking discipline. According to Bloomberg, however, Huang called the report's claims "nonsense," and told reporters on Saturday, "I believe in OpenAI. The work that they do is incredible. They’re one of the most consequential companies of our time.” But, Bloomberg reports, he said NVIDIA's investment in this funding round wouldn't come near $100 billion.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/nvidia-is-still-planning-to-make-a-huge-investment-in-openai-ceo-says-205521528.html?src=rss

Jan 31, 2026

Ayaneo's Pocket S Mini has the perfect aspect ratio for revisiting classic console games

There may be plenty of <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:1;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.engadget.com/gaming/next-gen-snapdragon-g-series-chips-will-power-handhelds-from-ayaneo-onexsugar-and-retroid-pocket-131733930.html">gaming handhelds</a> out there, but there aren't many horizontal options that let you play childhood favorites in the original 4:3 aspect ratio. To address that gap, Ayaneo launched a premium option with the <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:2;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://ayaneo.com/article/915">Pocket S Mini</a>. As a "true 4:3 retro handheld," the Pocket S Mini won't have those pesky vertical black bars whenever you're emulating video games from the CRT television era. Handhelds like the <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:3;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.engadget.com/gaming/you-can-now-buy-anbernics-budget-ds-clone-but-dont-get-your-hopes-up-for-3ds-emulation-183140820.html">Anbernic</a> RG405M and even Ayaneo's own Pocket Air Mini already offer a 4:3 aspect ratio, but the Pocket S Mini presents a more high-end build with a full metal frame and a glass front panel. The 4.2-inch LCD screen has a resolution of 1,280 x 960 and is flanked by Hall effect joysticks with RGB lighting, Hall effect triggers and "crystal-textured" buttons. Inside, the Pocket S Mini runs on a Snapdragon G3x Gen 2 chip and is powered by a 6,000mAh battery. <figure><img src="https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2026-01/c9056290-fee3-11f0-8fff-6c67c209c9ea" data-crop-orig-src="https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2026-01/c9056290-fee3-11f0-8fff-6c67c209c9ea" style="height:1125px;width:2000px;" alt="The Ayaneo Pocket S Mini in Obsidian Black, Ice Soul White and Retro Power." data-uuid="c1558029-03c6-31f0-b4fe-51324ec7fd6d"><figcaption></figcaption><div class="photo-credit">Ayaneo</div></figure> Unlike most of Ayaneo's <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:4;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ayaneos-latest-game-boy-remake-will-have-an-early-bird-starting-price-of-269-174553644.html">other devices</a>, the Pocket S Mini isn't being done through a crowdfunding campaign. It's already available on <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:5;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://ayaneo.com/goods/9505548108021">Ayaneo's website</a> with a starting early bird price of $319 for either the Obsidian Black or Ice Soul White options with 8GB of memory and 128GB of storage. As usual, the Retro Power colorway will only be available with the highest specs of 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage, starting at $479. We're not sure when Ayaneo will end early bird pricing, but the prices will eventually jump to between $399 and $559 for retail pricing.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ayaneos-pocket-s-mini-has-the-perfect-aspect-ratio-for-revisiting-classic-console-games-203926701.html?src=rss

Jan 31, 2026

OnlyFans is reportedly in talks to sell a 60 percent stake to a San Francisco investment firm

<a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:1;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.engadget.com/only-fans-temporarily-halts-services-for-russian-creators-234834046.html">OnlyFans</a> is looking to cash out once again, but this time in a deal that would value it at several billion dollars less than a potential sale that previously fell through. As reported by <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:2;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/30/onlyfans-considering-selling-majority-stake-to-architect-capital/">TechCrunch</a>, the online platform known for subscription-based pornographic content is in talks to sell a majority stake to Architect Capital, an investment firm based in San Francisco. According to the report, the proposed deal includes $3.5 billion in equity and $2 billion in debt, which values OnlyFans at $5.5 billion. TechCrunch also reported that Architect Capital and OnlyFans are currently in exclusive talks, where the website's owner can't negotiate with other potential buyers for a certain amount of time. With no set timeline yet for the deal, the deal is far from an official closing. Last year, OnlyFans' owner Leonid Radvinsky was also negotiating with another investment firm, Forest Road Company, to <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:3;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/onlyfans-is-in-talks-to-sell-for-8-billion-165318788.html">sell the platform</a>. Although that deal never went through, the talks leading up to the sale valued OnlyFans at a much higher $8 billion. The London-based website, which still doesn't want to be known as just a <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:4;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.engadget.com/onlyfans-suspends-ban-on-sexually-explicit-content-132256309.html">porn site</a>, is still growing and reported a nine percent increase in gross revenue for its 2024 fiscal year, earning more than <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:5;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://variety.com/2025/digital/news/onlyfans-fiscal-2024-revenue-earnings-1236495750/">$7.2 billion</a>.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/onlyfans-is-reportedly-in-talks-to-sell-a-60-percent-stake-to-a-san-francisco-investment-firm-191842666.html?src=rss

Jan 31, 2026

SpaceX wants to launch a constellation of a million satellites to power AI needs

Elon Musk and his aerospace company have requested to build a network that's 100 times the number of satellites that are currently in orbit. On Friday, SpaceX <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:1;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://fccprod.servicenowservices.com/icfs?id=ibfs_application_summary&number=SAT-LOA-20260108-00016">filed an application</a> with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch a million satellites meant to create an "orbital data center." This isn't the first time we're hearing of Musk's plans to build an orbital data center, as it was mentioned by company insiders following the news that the CEO was reportedly preparing to <a data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/science/space/elon-musk-is-reportedly-trying-to-take-spacex-public-170337053.html">take SpaceX public</a>. According to the filing spotted by <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:3;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.pcmag.com/news/spacex-eyes-1-million-satellites-for-orbital-data-center-push?test_uuid=04IpBmWGZleS0I0J3epvMrC&test_variant=B">PCMag</a>, this data center would run off solar power and deliver computing capacity for <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:4;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/elon-musks-spacex-and-xai-are-reportedly-holding-merger-talks-211740150.html">artificial intelligence needs</a>. SpaceX is requesting to "deploy a system of up to one million satellites to operate within narrow orbital shells spanning up to 50 km each," as detailed in the filing. According to SpaceX's filing, "orbital data centers are the most efficient way to meet the accelerating demand for AI computing power" since they use "solar power with little operating and maintenance costs." To give some scale of the astronomical number of satellites SpaceX is asking for, the company recently hit a milestone of the 11,000th Starlink satellite launched. There aren't as many in orbit since the satellites can run into issues, but an <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:5;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://planet4589.org/space/con/star/stats.html">unofficial website</a> that tracks Starlink stats claims there are more than 9,600 satellites in orbit as of January 30, 2026. The FCC is likely to whittle down the amount that SpaceX is asking for in its filing, as the federal agency has done in the past. Earlier this month, the FCC approved <a data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:6;pos:1" class="no-affiliate-link" href="https://www.engadget.com/science/space/spacex-can-deploy-7500-more-starlink-gen2-satellites-with-fcc-approval-180000843.html">SpaceX's request</a> to deploy 7,500 more Starlink satellites, following another 7,500 launched in 2022. However, it's much less than the nearly 30,000 amount that SpaceX first asked for in 2020.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/spacex-wants-to-launch-a-constellation-of-a-million-satellites-to-power-ai-needs-175607771.html?src=rss

Jan 31, 2026

Blue Origin is pausing its space tourist flights to work on lunar landers for NASA

Blue Origin plans to <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.blueorigin.com/news/new-shepard-to-pause-flights" data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1">put a focus</a> on the development of its human lunar capabilities, so it won’t be sending tourists to space for at least the next two years. That means we won’t be seeing any New Shepard launches for quite some time. Blue Origin is one of the companies NASA chose to develop human landing systems for its Artemis program, along with SpaceX. Specifically, it will work on landers for the Artemis III and Artemis V missions. The company was <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-selects-blue-origin-as-second-artemis-lunar-lander-provider/" data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1">originally contracted</a> to build the human landing system that would transfer astronauts from NASA’s <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/spacex-lunar-gateway-launch-contract-231142514.html" data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1">Gateway</a> station to the moon’s South Pole region for the Artemis V mission. But last year, NASA asked Blue Origin to <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=c813ae39-7d58-41cb-ac66-ad830606ceef&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=d33359a3-36e5-4f26-8fc2-6617d1b6d14b&featureId=text-link&merchantName=The+New+York+Times&linkText=design+an+alternative&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5ueXRpbWVzLmNvbS8yMDI1LzEwLzMxL3NjaWVuY2UvbmFzYS1tb29uLWxhbmRlci1zcGFjZXgtYmx1ZS1vcmlnaW4uaHRtbCIsImNvbnRlbnRVdWlkIjoiZDMzMzU5YTMtMzZlNS00ZjI2LThmYzItNjYxN2QxYjZkMTRiIiwib3JpZ2luYWxVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5ueXRpbWVzLmNvbS8yMDI1LzEwLzMxL3NjaWVuY2UvbmFzYS1tb29uLWxhbmRlci1zcGFjZXgtYmx1ZS1vcmlnaW4uaHRtbCJ9&signature=AQAAASET3pgGnARbpJJM0KV2b1ejUsAEDbIgZw6wBFWDIT8q&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F10%2F31%2Fscience%2Fnasa-moon-lander-spacex-blue-origin.html" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:The New York Times;elmt:;cpos:4;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/31/science/nasa-moon-lander-spacex-blue-origin.html">design an alternative</a> lander for Artemis III after SpaceX experienced delays due to <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/science/space/the-booster-for-spacexs-starship-v3-suffered-a-gas-system-failure-during-testing-181459063.html" data-i13n="cpos:5;pos:1">Starship’s failed tests</a>. Artemis III is expected to be the first crewed moon landing mission of the program, and the Trump administration wants it to happen before the end of the president’s term. New Shepard takes tourists to suborbital space, where they experience a few minutes of weightlessness before the spacecraft makes its way back to Earth. Jeff Bezos was one of the passengers on <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-tourist-flight-123407896.html" data-i13n="cpos:6;pos:1">New Shepard’s first tourist flight</a> back in 2021. Since then, it has flown and landed 37 more times and carried 98 passengers to the Karman line, including Katy Perry and William Shatner. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/blue-origin-is-pausing-its-space-tourist-flights-to-work-on-lunar-landers-for-nasa-143000058.html?src=rss

Jan 31, 2026

How to turn on hypertension alerts on Apple Watch

Apple has steadily expanded the <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/wearables/best-apple-watch-160005462.html" data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1">Apple Watch’s</a> health monitoring features over the years, moving beyond fitness tracking into areas that can offer early insight into potential medical concerns. One of the most recent additions is <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/wearables/apple-watch-series-11-receives-fda-clearance-for-hypertension-alerts-120046138.html" data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1">hypertension alerts</a>, which are designed to notify users when their blood pressure trends are elevated over time. While Apple Watches cannot directly measure blood pressure, this feature can still play a useful role in highlighting patterns that may be worth discussing with your doctor. Here, we’ll explain what hypertension alerts do, how they work and how to enable and manage them on the Apple Watch.<h2 id="jump-link-what-hypertension-alerts-do">What hypertension alerts do</h2>Hypertension alerts are designed to identify long-term trends that may indicate elevated blood pressure. Instead of relying on a traditional cuff measurement, the Apple Watch analyzes a combination of health data collected over a 30-day period, including heart rate, movement patterns and other contextual information stored in the Health app. Using this data, the system looks for sustained changes that align with patterns commonly associated with hypertension.If your Apple Watch detects a trend suggesting elevated blood pressure over an extended period, it’ll send you a notification. These alerts are not intended to diagnose hypertension or replace medical testing. Instead, they serve as an early signal that something may have changed and that you may want to seek further monitoring or professional advice.Apple emphasizes that hypertension alerts are designed for users who have not already been diagnosed with high blood pressure. Instead, they are meant to raise awareness rather than confirm a condition.<h2 id="jump-link-who-can-use-hypertension-alerts">Who can use hypertension alerts</h2>Hypertension alerts require a compatible Apple Watch model (Apple Watch Series 9 or later, or Apple Watch Ultra 2 or later) paired with a supported iPhone (iPhone 11 or later). The feature also depends on recent versions of watchOS and iOS, as it relies on updated health algorithms and background data analysis. To use hypertension alerts you must be 22 years of age or older, not be pregnant and not have been diagnosed with hypertension. You also need to ensure that your Apple Watch’s Wrist Detection feature is turned on.  To receive meaningful alerts, your Apple Watch needs sufficient data. This means wearing the watch regularly, including during sleep if sleep tracking is enabled, and keeping health details such as age, sex, height and weight up-to-date in the Health app. The system uses long-term trends, so alerts will not appear immediately after enabling the feature.<h2 id="jump-link-how-to-turn-on-hypertension-alerts">How to turn on hypertension alerts</h2>Hypertension alerts are managed through the Health app on the paired iPhone. The feature cannot be enabled directly from the watch itself. During setup, the Health app will ask for confirmation that the user has not been diagnosed with hypertension. It may also prompt a review of health details such as date of birth and biological sex, as this information helps improve the accuracy of trend analysis.To get started, open the Health app on the iPhone paired with the Apple Watch. From the main Health screen, tap your profile in the top corner. Select Health Checklist from the available Features. Next, you’ll need to tap Hypertension Notifications, confirm your age and whether or not you’ve ever been diagnosed with hypertension. Tap Continue and follow the on-screen prompts for information on how the notifications work. Once you have done this, tap Done and you’ll be all set. Once enabled, the feature runs automatically in the background. There is no need to manually start monitoring or interact with the feature daily.<figure><img src="https://media-mbst-pub-ue1.s3.amazonaws.com/creatr-uploaded-images/2025-09/2b414990-8da3-11f0-b7fb-94b994b5094e" data-crop-orig-src="https://media-mbst-pub-ue1.s3.amazonaws.com/creatr-uploaded-images/2025-09/2b414990-8da3-11f0-b7fb-94b994b5094e" style="height:1350px;width:2400px;" alt="The new apple watch series 11 can help identify hypertension" data-uuid="3fa2b898-4a14-3ca6-9af3-e2041afe4a93"/><figcaption>The new apple watch series 11 can help identify hypertension</figcaption><div class="photo-credit">Apple</div></figure><h2 id="jump-link-managing-notifications-and-alerts">Managing notifications and alerts</h2>When hypertension alerts are turned on, notifications appear on both the Apple Watch and the paired iPhone. These alerts typically explain that a long-term trend suggesting elevated blood pressure has been detected, along with guidance on next steps.Users can manage how and when these notifications appear by adjusting notification settings for the Health app. This includes choosing whether alerts appear on the lock screen, in Notification Center or as time-sensitive notifications on Apple Watch.Health data related to hypertension alerts can be reviewed at any time in the Health app. While Apple Watch does not display a specific blood pressure number, users can view contextual information and educational material explaining what the alert means and what actions may be appropriate.<h2 id="jump-link-how-hypertension-alerts-can-help">How hypertension alerts can help</h2>Hypertension often develops gradually and may not cause noticeable symptoms in its early stages. Because of this, many people are unaware of elevated blood pressure until it is identified during a routine medical check.Hypertension alerts can let you know of subtle changes that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. For some users, an alert may prompt earlier conversations with a doctor, additional blood pressure monitoring at home or lifestyle changes such as adjustments to diet, activity or sleep habits.It is important to treat these notifications as informational rather than diagnostic. Apple Watch does not provide specific blood pressure readings and cannot confirm hypertension on its own.<h2 id="jump-link-what-to-do-if-you-receive-an-alert">What to do if you receive an alert</h2>Receiving a hypertension alert does not mean that there is an immediate medical emergency. Apple recommends using the alert as a prompt to pay closer attention to your cardiovascular health.Many users choose to follow up by measuring blood pressure using a traditional cuff at home or by scheduling a check with a healthcare professional. A doctor can provide proper testing, diagnosis and guidance based on clinical measurements and individual risk factors.It is also worth reviewing lifestyle factors that can influence blood pressure, such as physical activity levels, sleep quality, stress and diet. Apple Watch can already help track many of these areas, which may provide useful context when discussing health concerns with a professional.<h2 id="jump-link-limitations-to-keep-in-mind">Limitations to keep in mind</h2>Hypertension alerts are not available in all regions and may be subject to regulatory approval. The feature also requires consistent Apple Watch use over time to generate reliable trend data.Most importantly, the Apple Watch does not measure blood pressure directly. The alerts are based on correlations and trends rather than direct readings, which means they should not be used as a substitute for medical equipment or professional care.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/how-to-turn-on-hypertension-alerts-on-apple-watch-130000090.html?src=rss

Jan 31, 2026

Highguard, a hyperpop arena shooter and other new indie games worth checking out

Welcome to our latest roundup of what's going on in the indie game space. There are tons of interesting games out this week. But first, there's been some discourse around the Nintendo Switch version of Dispatch, which arrived this week as well.On other platforms, there's an option to censor genitalia and other explicit content, but that's not present in the Switch version. Instead, such content is censored by default, with black rectangles <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.nintendo-insider.com/dispatch-switch-2-review/" data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1">covering up characters' bits</a> and someone flipping the bird. Noises that suggest sexual pleasure are said to be toned down too."We worked with Nintendo to ensure the content within the title met the criteria to release on their platforms, but the core narrative and gameplay experience remains identical to the original release," developer AdHoc told <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.eurogamer.net/dispatch-switch-switch-2-censored-adhoc-comment" data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1">EuroGamer</a>. Nintendo later said in a statement to <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.gonintendo.com/contents/57182-nintendo-shares-statement-on-dispatch-censorship-debacle-and-it-doesn-t-explain-much" data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1">GoNintendo</a> that it "requires all games on its platforms to receive ratings from independent organizations and to meet our established content and platform guidelines. While we inform partners when their titles don’t meet our guidelines, Nintendo does not make changes to partner content. We also do not discuss specific content or the criteria used in making these determinations." There are other games available for the Switch and Switch 2 that feature nudity and explicit content. There have long been hentai games on the eShop, while mainstream games like The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 (<a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/cyberpunk-2077-glitch-penis-breasts-170449946.html" data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1">we know all about the dongs in that one</a>) still include explicit content on Nintendo platforms. So it's a bit of a strange one, and AdHoc and Nintendo didn't exactly clear things up with their statements. There's been speculation that AdHoc censored the game to comply with rules in Japan (Cyberpunk 2077 is <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.pcgamer.com/cd-projekt-red-confirms-cyberpunk-2077-will-be-censored-in-japan/" data-i13n="cpos:5;pos:1">censored there</a> too) and that it opted to have just one version of the game available globally on Nintendo platforms. All the same, it's a curious situation that's resulted in a lot of discourse. But there's been another indie game that's been a source of even more chatter this week...<h2 id="jump-link-new-releases">New releases</h2><div><div style="left:0;width:100%;height:0;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gqFccBZyTaA?rel=0" style="top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;position:absolute;border:0;" allowfullscreen scrolling="no" data-embed-domain="youtube.com" data-provider-name="youtube"></iframe></div></div>Highguard is a 3v3 raid shooter from Wildlight Entertainment, a team that includes a bunch of former Apex Legends and Titanfall developers. It <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/gaming/everything-announced-and-all-the-winners-at-the-game-awards-2025-044101761.html" data-i13n="cpos:6;pos:1">broke cover at The Game Awards</a> in December when it was the final reveal of the night but that first trailer wasn't great. <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://kotaku.com/highguard-game-awards-trailer-rust-hero-shooter-interview-2000663137" data-i13n="cpos:7;pos:1">As it turned out</a>, TGA creator and host Geoff Keighley was a friend of the devs and after trying Highguard, he wanted to include it in the show. Wildlight cobbled together a trailer, but that disrupted the studio's long-standing plans to reveal and release the game simultaneously — a <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/2019-02-04-apex-legends-battle-royale-game-now-available-respawn-titanfall.html" data-i13n="cpos:8;pos:1">strategy</a> that worked wonders for Apex Legends (though that game had the might of EA behind it).After revealing Highguard, Wildlight effectively went radio silent until a release day showcase on Monday to detail just what the game is and how it works. That seems to have been a mistake given the <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/highguard-deserves-a-chance-so-dont-kill-it-out-of-spite/" data-i13n="cpos:9;pos:1">review bombing</a> and strange vendetta some developed against it. Highguard went live on Monday and Wildlight published a whole bunch of YouTube videos revealing the game's features. Spreading those out between TGA and this week could have tempered expectations.In any case, I've played a few rounds of Highguard and mostly enjoyed my time with it so far. It's a blend of hero shooter and MOBA. As you might expect for a game from Apex and Titanfall veterans, the weapons feel well-tuned and the gunplay is snappy. There’s a lot going on and the maps are far too big for just six players. It's fun enough, but I don't think it's a game that's going to break my Overwatch obsession. Riding into battle on the back of a bear feels pretty great, though. You can play Highguard for free on <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/4128260/Highguard/" data-i13n="cpos:10;pos:1">Steam</a>, <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UB0704-PPSA25022_00-NC10000000000000" data-i13n="cpos:11;pos:1">PS5</a> and <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=5f41950e-8ca3-4481-8466-a22b28b80e32&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=462b5557-20ab-4878-be7c-f25feceae428&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Xbox&linkText=Xbox+Series+X%2FS&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy54Ym94LmNvbS9lbi1VUy9nYW1lcy9zdG9yZS9oaWdoZ3VhcmQvOW1zcWxyYjVobm01IiwiY29udGVudFV1aWQiOiI0NjJiNTU1Ny0yMGFiLTQ4NzgtYmU3Yy1mMjVmZWNlYWU0MjgiLCJvcmlnaW5hbFVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lnhib3guY29tL2VuLVVTL2dhbWVzL3N0b3JlL2hpZ2hndWFyZC85bXNxbHJiNWhubTUifQ&signature=AQAAAbSo1wI803sPKzI_VfRl93916T1z6GpQpT3JWZB4Ehpb&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.xbox.com%2Fen-US%2Fgames%2Fstore%2Fhighguard%2F9msqlrb5hnm5" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Xbox;elmt:;cpos:12;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/store/highguard/9msqlrb5hnm5">Xbox Series X/S</a>.<div><div style="left:0;width:100%;height:0;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Yi8C56wBsF4?rel=0" style="top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;position:absolute;border:0;" allowfullscreen scrolling="no" data-embed-domain="youtube.com" data-provider-name="youtube"></iframe></div></div>I really wanted to like <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/incolatus-dont-stop-girlypop-may-be-the-y2k-fever-dream-arena-shooter-you-never-knew-you-needed-182348483.html" data-i13n="cpos:13;pos:1">Don’t Stop, Girlypop!</a> more than I did. I'd been looking forward to it for a while, as the promise of a Doom Eternal-style arena shooter with chaotic hyperpop-inspired visuals seemed like a great blend. Don't get me wrong, I adore the aesthetic and the <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mF74NpmUZtb7rObZmM9t_zXYmA06Ojn1k" data-i13n="cpos:14;pos:1">soundtrack is spot on</a> thanks to some cracking songs from Sarah Wolfe, Xavier Dunn and Candice Susnjar. I just wish it was as fun to play as it is to look at and listen to.The visual clutter and fast pace sometimes makes it hard to spot enemies and the narrative doesn't really hang together, as much as the developers have salient points to make about the exploitation of finite resources. The core gameplay idea here is that the faster you move, the more damage you deal and more you heal. The game has its own take on a bunny hop called a wave hop that boosts your speed, but felt like it slowed me down because of the complex combination of inputs (jump, ground pound, jump, dash). That also caused my hand to cramp up very quickly. I do love the customization here. Slapping rhinestones and baby sharks onto my weapons was delightful. The game's take on a gravity gun is fun too. So while Don't Stop, Girlypop! — from Funny Fintan Softworks and publisher Kwalee — didn't fully land for me, there are some aspects I like a whole lot. It's out now on <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/2610650/Dont_Stop_Girlypop/" data-i13n="cpos:15;pos:1">Steam</a> for $20 (there's a 10 percent launch discount until February 5).<div><div style="left:0;width:100%;height:0;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6Ejphz8fY0A?rel=0" style="top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;position:absolute;border:0;" allowfullscreen scrolling="no" data-embed-domain="youtube.com" data-provider-name="youtube"></iframe></div></div>We're been looking forward to <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/gaming/cairns-new-release-date-is-january-29-2026-211508330.html" data-i13n="cpos:16;pos:1">Cairn</a> for a while around these parts, so it's heartening to see that it debuted to broadly <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://gameinformer.com/review/cairn/the-price-of-persistence" data-i13n="cpos:17;pos:1">positive</a> <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/games/2026/jan/29/cairn-review-obsession-suffering-and-awe-in-a-climbing-game-that-hits-exhausting-new-heights" data-i13n="cpos:18;pos:1">reviews</a>. This one from The Game Bakers is the latest in a string of climbing adventures, such as the lovely Jusant. So if Alex Honnold's recent <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/gaming/climbing-game-cairn-will-have-a-free-solo-mode-with-no-rope-213450638.html" data-i13n="cpos:19;pos:1">free solo climb</a> up a skyscraper has inspired you to ascend something very large without really posing a risk to your wellbeing, Cairn might be what you're looking for. Cairn is out now on <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/cairn/" data-i13n="cpos:20;pos:1">PS5</a> and <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1588550/Cairn/" data-i13n="cpos:21;pos:1">Steam</a> for $30. There's a 10 percent launch discount on Steam until February 12, and until February 13 on PS5 if you're a PS Plus member.<div><div style="left:0;width:100%;height:0;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WiNuwHFDYh8?rel=0" style="top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;position:absolute;border:0;" allowfullscreen scrolling="no" data-embed-domain="youtube.com" data-provider-name="youtube"></iframe></div></div>Every trailer I've seen for <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/gaming/silksong-smacking-sticks-and-other-new-indie-games-worth-checking-out-110020156.html" data-i13n="cpos:22;pos:1">Steel Century Groove</a> has made me smile, so you can bet I'll be jumping into this when I have a chance. It's a rhythm game with Pokémon-style RPG elements in which you take control of a robot in dance battles. There's some original and licensed music to boogie along to and you can load in your own MP3s (you can bank on me loading some Electric Callboy tracks into this game). Steel Century Groove will create procedurally-generated choreography and charts for your custom songs. You can manually adjust the BPM too.This debut title from solo developer Sloth Gloss Games is <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1858950/Steel_Century_Groove/" data-i13n="cpos:23;pos:1">out now on Steam</a> for $20. There's a 10 percent launch discount until February 11. There's a demo available, and progress from there carries over into the full game.<div><div style="left:0;width:100%;height:0;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lNjzFlxoxWM?rel=0" style="top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;position:absolute;border:0;" allowfullscreen scrolling="no" data-embed-domain="youtube.com" data-provider-name="youtube"></iframe></div></div>Rosday's Wanderling is a roguelike platformer with no combat. You have eight attempts to acquire the gear and learn the knowledge you need to pass each dungeon. Scour for loot and buy upgrades from the shop before night falls to help you on your way. You can place markers to help you remember where you've been. Runs are said to be short at between 20 and 30 minutes. The visuals remind me a bit of Celeste too. You can check out Wanderling on <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/2859530/Wanderling/" data-i13n="cpos:24;pos:1">Steam</a> now for $8 (a 10 percent discount brings the price down to $7.20 until February 2).<div><div style="left:0;width:100%;height:0;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PCiL6h8x7qM?rel=0" style="top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;position:absolute;border:0;" allowfullscreen scrolling="no" data-embed-domain="youtube.com" data-provider-name="youtube"></iframe></div></div>I can't help but admire Strange Scaffold (<a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/clickolding-from-the-i-am-your-beast-devs-looks-like-a-clicking-nightmare-180504296.html" data-i13n="cpos:25;pos:1">Clickolding</a>, I Am Your Beast, Co-op Kaiju Horror Cooking) and the rate at which it releases games. The latest one is Space Warlord Baby Trading Simulator. It's a stock market sim in which you speculate on the future success or failures of the "simulated lives of babies." You can "short that baby" if you choose as you try to make gains. In a timeline where prediction markets allow you to speculate on just about anything (listen to <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/general/engadget-podcast-what-do-prediction-markets-like-kalshi-cost-us-143113799.html" data-i13n="cpos:26;pos:1">this week's episode of the Engadget Podcast</a> to learn more about that), gambling on the future of babies doesn't seem that farfetched.Space Warlord Baby Trading Simulator — which is set in the same world as Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator — is out now on <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/3642000/Space_Warlord_Baby_Trading_Simulator/" data-i13n="cpos:27;pos:1">Steam</a>. It'll normally cost $20, but there's a 15 percent discount until February 12. Strange Scaffold is also bringing the game to Xbox Series X/S in the near future.<div><div style="left:0;width:100%;height:0;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iKD83Z1RbR0?rel=0" style="top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;position:absolute;border:0;" allowfullscreen scrolling="no" data-embed-domain="youtube.com" data-provider-name="youtube"></iframe></div></div>I Hate This Place is an isometric survival game based on the eponymous comic book series by Kyle Starks and Artyom Topilin. The game retains a comic book aesthetic and it has '80s horror movie-style inflections. The way that noise is visualized is pretty interesting here. Onomatopoeic words will pop up and you'll see color-coded footsteps — useful when you're trying to be stealthy. Crafting is a key aspect of the game as well.I Hate This Place — from Rock Square Thunder, Broken Mirror Games and Skybound Entertainment — is out now on <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/2604490/I_Hate_This_Place/" data-i13n="cpos:28;pos:1">Steam</a>, <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://store.playstation.com/en-us/concept/10017830" data-i13n="cpos:29;pos:1">PS5</a>, <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/i-hate-this-place-switch/" data-i13n="cpos:30;pos:1">Nintendo Switch</a> and <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=5f41950e-8ca3-4481-8466-a22b28b80e32&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=462b5557-20ab-4878-be7c-f25feceae428&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Xbox&linkText=Xbox+Series+X%2FS&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy54Ym94LmNvbS9lbi11cy9nYW1lcy9zdG9yZS9pLWhhdGUtdGhpcy1wbGFjZS85UDlON1ZHMkJGNTMiLCJjb250ZW50VXVpZCI6IjQ2MmI1NTU3LTIwYWItNDg3OC1iZTdjLWYyNWZlY2VhZTQyOCIsIm9yaWdpbmFsVXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cueGJveC5jb20vZW4tdXMvZ2FtZXMvc3RvcmUvaS1oYXRlLXRoaXMtcGxhY2UvOVA5TjdWRzJCRjUzIn0&signature=AQAAASjlcGZiLZ7OyjmqMYAtJJEpt_xiuDb7G0eNm_8nO8jY&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.xbox.com%2Fen-us%2Fgames%2Fstore%2Fi-hate-this-place%2F9P9N7VG2BF53" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Xbox;elmt:;cpos:31;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.xbox.com/en-us/games/store/i-hate-this-place/9P9N7VG2BF53">Xbox Series X/S</a>. The regular price is $30 and there's a 20 percent launch discount on some platforms. I can't find a trailer for this on YouTube, unfortunately, but <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/4080840/REBADGE/" data-i13n="cpos:32;pos:1">Rebadge</a> caught my eye this week as well. It's a puzzle platformer from Yuumayay, who appears to be a 17-year-old solo developer. Your character carries badges that allow them to carry out actions like moving and jumping. Other badges include "affected by gravity" and "destroys on contact." Here's the trick: you can throw a badge and lose the associated ability, but then you can apply the trait to something else in the world.It's a neat idea that draws from the playbooks of games like Baba Is You. Rebadge typically costs $8, but there's a 15 percent launch discount.<h2 id="jump-link-upcoming">Upcoming </h2><div><div style="left:0;width:100%;height:0;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GA4_EeckArA?rel=0" style="top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;position:absolute;border:0;" allowfullscreen scrolling="no" data-embed-domain="youtube.com" data-provider-name="youtube"></iframe></div></div>Moon Beast Productions is a studio formed by several of the creators of Diablo and Diablo II. This week, it revealed gameplay for its first title, Darkhaven, which is a fantasy isometric action RPG in the vein of (you guessed it) Diablo. You'll be able to play this one solo or with friends, and there are PvP elements. Darkhaven has procedurally generated, destructible worlds along with "massive events that threaten your entire world."The gameplay shown in the trailer looks a bit rough, but it's still early days. In fact, Moon Beast is planning a <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/moonbeastproductions/darkhaven-an-action-rpg-with-dynamic-worlds" data-i13n="cpos:33;pos:1">Kickstarter campaign</a> for Darkhaven. There's no release window as yet, but you can wishlist it on <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/3571870/Darkhaven/" data-i13n="cpos:34;pos:1">Steam</a>.<div><div style="left:0;width:100%;height:0;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4Ekn60sFS2Q?rel=0" style="top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;position:absolute;border:0;" allowfullscreen scrolling="no" data-embed-domain="youtube.com" data-provider-name="youtube"></iframe></div></div>Box or Void is a puzzle game that clearly takes some inspiration from Sokoban and Snake. Here, though, gameplay takes place across two planes. You'll switch between positive and negative space — obstacles on one side turn into pathways on the other. You'll alter the level layouts by pushing boxes. This one from Dumen Games has an intriguing premise. There's no release date as yet for Box or Void, but a demo with 32 levels (about a fifth of what will be in the full game) <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/3878040/Box_or_Void/" data-i13n="cpos:35;pos:1">dropped this week on Steam</a>.<div><div style="left:0;width:100%;height:0;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fDLHD8zV610?rel=0" style="top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;position:absolute;border:0;" allowfullscreen scrolling="no" data-embed-domain="youtube.com" data-provider-name="youtube"></iframe></div></div>If there's a game that's billed as Dredge meets Wall-E, that's going to be enough to sell me. Describe it as a "petroidvania" and call it Good Boy, and I'm definitely in. This is a creature-collecting Metroidvania from Observer Interactive and publisher Team17 in which pups are reincarnated as space rovers. I could not dig that premise more. <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/2986110/Good_Boy/" data-i13n="cpos:36;pos:1">Good Boy</a> is expected to hit Steam later this year.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/highguard-a-hyperpop-arena-shooter-and-other-new-indie-games-worth-checking-out-120000874.html?src=rss

Jan 30, 2026

NASA used Claude to plot a route for its Perseverance rover on Mars

Since 2021, NASA's Perseverance rover has achieved a number of historic milestones, including sending back the first <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/perseverance-driving-on-mars-sounds-063118359.html" data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1">audio recordings from Mars</a>. Now, nearly five years after <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/perseverance-lands-on-mars-205800998.html" data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1">landing on the Red Planet</a>, it just achieved another feat. This past December, Perseverance successfully completed a route through a section of the Jezero crater <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.nasa.gov/missions/mars-2020-perseverance/perseverance-rover/nasas-perseverance-rover-completes-first-ai-planned-drive-on-mars/" data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1">plotted by Anthropic's Claude chatbot</a>, marking the first time NASA has used a large language model to pilot the car-sized robot.    Between December 8 and 10, Perseverance drove approximately 400 meters (about 437 yards) through a field of rocks on the Martian surface mapped out by Claude. As you might imagine, using an AI model to plot a course for Perseverance wasn't as simple as inputting a single prompt. <div><div style="left:0;width:100%;height:0;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0QtS85SRnOE?rel=0" style="top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;position:absolute;border:0;" allowfullscreen scrolling="no" data-embed-domain="youtube.com" data-provider-name="youtube"></iframe></div></div>As NASA explains, routing Perseverance is no easy task, even for a human. "Every rover drive needs to be carefully planned, lest the machine slide, tip, spin its wheels, or get beached," NASA said. "So ever since the rover landed, its human operators have painstakingly laid out waypoints — they call it a 'breadcrumb trail' — for it to follow, using a combination of images taken from space and the rover’s onboard cameras." To get Claude to complete the task, NASA had to first provide <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/anthropic-launches-claude-cowork-a-version-of-its-coding-ai-for-regular-people-193000849.html" data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1">Claude Code</a>, Anthropic's programming agent, with the "years" of contextual data from the rover before the model could begin writing a route for Perseverance. Claude then went about the mapping process methodically, stringing together waypoints from ten-meter segments it would later critique and iterate on.  This being NASA we're talking about, engineers from the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) made sure to double check the model's work before sending it to Perseverance. The JPL team ran Claude's waypoints through a simulation they use every day to confirm the accuracy of commands sent to the rover. In the end, NASA says it only had to make "minor changes" to Claude's route, with one tweak coming as a result of the fact the team had access to ground-level images Claude hadn't seen in its planning process.  <div><div style="left:0;width:100%;height:0;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LO2GluKu4C8?rel=0" style="top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;position:absolute;border:0;" allowfullscreen scrolling="no" data-embed-domain="youtube.com" data-provider-name="youtube"></iframe></div></div>"The engineers estimate that using Claude in this way will cut the route-planning time in half, and make the journeys more consistent," NASA said. "Less time spent doing tedious manual planning — and less time spent training — allows the rover’s operators to fit in even more drives, collect even more scientific data, and do even more analysis. It means, in short, that we’ll learn much more about Mars."While the productivity gains offered by AI are <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://hbr.org/2025/09/ai-generated-workslop-is-destroying-productivity" data-i13n="cpos:5;pos:1">often overstated</a>, in the case of NASA, any tool that could allow its scientists to be more efficient is sure to be welcome. Over the summer, the agency <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/science/space/nasa-may-lose-close-to-4000-employees-after-latest-deferred-resignation-round-204452249.html" data-i13n="cpos:6;pos:1">lost about 4,000 employees</a> – accounting for about 20 percent of its workforce – due to Trump administration cuts. Going into 2026, the president had proposed gutting the agency's science budget by <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/science/space/trumps-defunding-of-nasa-would-be-catastrophic-153053020.html" data-i13n="cpos:7;pos:1">nearly half</a> before Congress ultimately <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/science/space/senate-passes-minibus-bill-funding-nasa-rejecting-trumps-proposed-cuts-231605536.html" data-i13n="cpos:8;pos:1">rejected that plan in early January</a>. Still, even with its funding preserved just below 2025 levels, the agency has a tough road ahead. It's being asked to return to the Moon with <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.planetary.org/charts/nasa-workforce-chart" data-i13n="cpos:9;pos:1">less than half the workforce</a> it had during the height of the Apollo program.     For Anthropic, meanwhile, this is a major feat. You may recall last spring Claude <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/claude-isnt-a-great-pokemon-player-and-thats-okay-151522448.html" data-i13n="cpos:10;pos:1">couldn't even beat Pokémon Red</a>. In less than a year, the company's models have gone from struggling to navigate a simple 8-bit Game Boy game to successfully plotting a course for a rover on a distant planet. NASA is excited about the possibility of future collaborations, saying "autonomous AI systems could help probes explore ever more distant parts of the solar system."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/nasa-used-claude-to-plot-a-route-for-its-perseverance-rover-on-mars-203150701.html?src=rss

Jan 30, 2026

Rivian made an electric ambulance for Grey's Anatomy

America’s once-promising EV transition may have <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/trump-administration-stops-nationwide-ev-charging-program-172002768.html" data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1">taken a U-turn</a>, but at least some in Hollywood are trying to do their part. Rivian partnered with Grey’s Anatomy to make a custom electric ambulance for the long-running series.The ambulance is a modified version of <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/amazon-rivian-electric-delivery-van-nationwide-152713164.html" data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1">Rivian’s Commercial Van</a>. The custom “vanbulance” serves a dual purpose: preventing on-set exhaust fumes (which could harm the cast and crew) and integrating a green storyline. “As an added benefit, the elimination of engine noise brought a welcome quiet while cameras were rolling,” Rivan wrote in a <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://stories.rivian.com/greys-anatomy-vanbulance-rivian-commercial-van" data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1">blog post</a>.<figure><img src="https://d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net/images/user-uploaded/rivian_2.jpg" data-crop-orig-src="https://d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net/images/user-uploaded/rivian_2.jpg" style="height:2044px;width:3408px;" alt="View of an ambulance interior for a Hollywood set" data-uuid="4985ae5d-254f-4fa9-ada9-98956d7a52f4"/><figcaption>Among other modifications, it has rear double doors instead of a roll-up one.</figcaption><div class="photo-credit">Rivian</div></figure>The vehicle includes some production-specific touches. Its walls and roof panels are removable, allowing cameras to reach angles required for interior shots. In addition, Rivian replaced the standard van’s rear roll-up door with double doors while adding a side entry to the cargo area. The company also added custom lighting and an exterior wrap reading “Seattle Emergency Response Services.”The team consulted with the Huntington Beach Fire Department and the Los Angeles Fire Department to inform the interior layout. “Their feedback was invaluable to understand how first responders actually use their vehicles,” Rivian wrote.<figure><img src="https://d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net/images/user-uploaded/imgi_16_cover-1769725585.jpg" data-crop-orig-src="https://d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net/images/user-uploaded/imgi_16_cover-1769725585.jpg" style="height:2200px;width:3300px;" alt="An electric ambulance used on a Hollywood set" data-uuid="6931e57a-fbdd-4de4-90cf-d14e08d7f8b9"/><figcaption>At least Hollywood's fictional worlds are transitioning to electric.</figcaption><div class="photo-credit">Rivian</div></figure>The Hollywood Reporter <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/greys-anatomy-electric-ambulance-season-22-1236488768/" data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1">notes</a> that the electric ambulance debuted in the November 13, 2025, episode of Grey’s Anatomy. However, it was featured more prominently in Thursday’s episode — hence Rivian choosing this week to highlight it.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/rivian-made-an-electric-ambulance-for-greys-anatomy-194358967.html?src=rss

Jan 30, 2026

Sundance doc 'Ghost in the Machine' draws a damning line between AI and eugenics

The Sundance documentary Ghost in the Machine boldly declares that the pursuit of artificial intelligence, and Silicon Valley itself, is rooted in eugenics. Director Valerie Veatch makes the case that the rise of techno-fascism from the likes of Elon Musk and Peter Thiel is a feature, not a bug. That may sound hyperbolic, but Ghost in the Machine, which is built around interviews with philosophers, AI researchers, historians and computer scientists, leaves little room for doubt.If you've been following the meteoric rise of AI, or Silicon Valley in general, Veatch's methodical deconstruction of the technology doesn't really unearth anything new. The film begins with the utter failure of <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/2016-03-23-microsofts-tay-ai-chat-bot.html" data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1">Microsoft's Tay chatbot</a>, which wasted no time in <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/2016-03-25-its-not-tays-fault-that-it-turned-racist-its-ours.html" data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1">becoming a Hitler-loving white supremacist</a>. It retreads the <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/why-do-ai-data-centers-use-so-many-resources-171500010.html" data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1">environmental impacts of AI datacenters</a>, as well as the ways tech companies have <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=7212db91-cd64-4c1b-ab0d-1d1c998f089e&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=11f3334f-4881-48b9-97e7-07f459eda8bd&featureId=text-link&merchantName=time&linkText=relied+on+low-wage+workers+from+Africa&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3RpbWUuY29tLzYyNDc2Nzgvb3BlbmFpLWNoYXRncHQta2VueWEtd29ya2Vycy8iLCJjb250ZW50VXVpZCI6IjExZjMzMzRmLTQ4ODEtNDhiOS05N2U3LTA3ZjQ1OWVkYThiZCIsIm9yaWdpbmFsVXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly90aW1lLmNvbS82MjQ3Njc4L29wZW5haS1jaGF0Z3B0LWtlbnlhLXdvcmtlcnMvIn0&signature=AQAAASmbjtXdvrtHRVhjiZ2Mh_R3JHayYXmZ1fF9MfjVAdN9&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Ftime.com%2F6247678%2Fopenai-chatgpt-kenya-workers%2F" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:time;elmt:;cpos:4;pos:1" data-original-link="https://time.com/6247678/openai-chatgpt-kenya-workers/">relied on low-wage workers from Africa</a> and elsewhere to improve their algorithms. But even I was surprised to learn that we can trace the impact of eugenics in tech all the way back to Karl Pearson, the mathematician who pioneered the field of statistics, and who also spent his life trying to quantify the differences between races. (Guess who he believed was superior.) His legacy was <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/Silicon-Valley-Shockley-racist-semiconductor-lab-13164228.php" data-i13n="cpos:5;pos:1">continued by William Shockley</a>, a co-creator of the transistor, an avowed white supremacist who spent his later years espousing (now debunked) theories around IQ and racial differences. <figure><img src="https://d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net/images/user-uploaded/6qnynar3wGhost_in_the_Machine-Still_1.jpg" data-crop-orig-src="https://d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net/images/user-uploaded/6qnynar3wGhost_in_the_Machine-Still_1.jpg" style="height:1406px;width:2500px;" alt="An early robot toy." data-uuid="06512819-e6ae-4d19-9b69-e08e8a2b9790"><figcaption>An early robot toy.</figcaption><div class="photo-credit">Valerie Veatch for "Ghost in the Machine"</div></figure>As a Stanford engineering professor, Shockley fostered a culture of prioritizing white men over women and minorities, which ultimately shaped the way Silicon Valley looks today. His line of thinking could have had an influence on John McCarthy, the Stanford researcher who coined the term “artificial intelligence” in 1955,  With roots like that, Elon Musk — known to <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://futurism.com/civil-rights-groups-horrified-elon-musk-racist" data-i13n="cpos:6;pos:1">spout bigotry online</a>,  <a target="_blank" class="link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=c813ae39-7d58-41cb-ac66-ad830606ceef&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=11f3334f-4881-48b9-97e7-07f459eda8bd&featureId=text-link&merchantName=The+New+York+Times&linkText=foster+a+reportedly+racist+work+environment+at+Tesla&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5ueXRpbWVzLmNvbS8yMDI1LzAyLzA2L2J1c2luZXNzL3Rlc2xhLWVsb24tbXVzay1kZWktZGlzY3JpbWluYXRpb24uaHRtbCIsImNvbnRlbnRVdWlkIjoiMTFmMzMzNGYtNDg4MS00OGI5LTk3ZTctMDdmNDU5ZWRhOGJkIiwib3JpZ2luYWxVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5ueXRpbWVzLmNvbS8yMDI1LzAyLzA2L2J1c2luZXNzL3Rlc2xhLWVsb24tbXVzay1kZWktZGlzY3JpbWluYXRpb24uaHRtbCJ9&signature=AQAAAWESrEfg_Pwy9XFUe3nNut5PHHx7TEr5jND6TiktRSkv&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F02%2F06%2Fbusiness%2Ftesla-elon-musk-dei-discrimination.html" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:The New York Times;elmt:;cpos:7;pos:1" data-original-link="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/business/tesla-elon-musk-dei-discrimination.html">foster a reportedly racist work environment at Tesla</a> and <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VfYjPzj1Xw" data-i13n="cpos:8;pos:1"> throw the occasionaly few Nazi salute</a> — looks less like an anomaly than part of a pattern. Ghost in the Machine asks a simple question: How can we trust men like this (and it's almost always men that look like Musk) with our future?Through its many interviews, which include the likes of AI researcher Dr. Emily Bender, historian Becca Lewis and media theorist Douglass Rushkoff, Ghost in the Machine paints the rise of AI as a fascistic project that aims to demean humans and establish the techno-elite as our de facto rulers. Given how much our lives are already dominated by gadgets and social networks from companies that have pioneered addictive engagement over user safety, it's easy to imagine history repeating itself with AI. Ghost in the Machine doesn't leave any room for considering potential benefits around AI, which could lead proponents of the technology to dismiss it as a hit-job. But we're currently at the apex of the AI hype cycle, after Big Tech has invested hundreds of billions of dollars on this technology, and after it has spent years shoving it down our throats without proving why it’s actually useful to many people. AI should be able to withstand a bit of criticism.Ghost in the Machine is available to view at the <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://festival.sundance.org/tickets/online" data-i13n="cpos:9;pos:1">Sundance Film Festival’s website and streaming apps</a> from today through the end of Sunday, February 1st.   This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/sundance-doc-ghost-in-the-machine-draws-a-damning-line-between-ai-and-eugenics-180613367.html?src=rss

Jan 30, 2026

Google's Project Genie lets you create your own 3D interactive worlds

This past summer, Google DeepMind <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-deepminds-genie-3-can-dynamically-alter-the-state-of-its-simulated-worlds-140052124.html" data-i13n="slk:debuted Genie 3;cpos:1;pos:1">debuted Genie 3</a>. It’s what’s known as a world world, an AI system capable of generating images and reacting as the user moves through the environment the software is simulating. At the time, DeepMind positioned Genie 3 as a tool for training AI agents. Now, it’s making the model available to people outside of Google to try with <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/google-deepmind/project-genie/" data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1">Project Genie</a>. <div><div style="left:0;width:100%;height:0;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YxkGdX4WIBE?rel=0" style="top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;position:absolute;border:0;" allowfullscreen scrolling="no" data-embed-domain="youtube.com" data-provider-name="youtube"></iframe></div></div>To start, you’ll need Google’s $250 per month AI Ultra plan to <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-wants-250-per-month-in-return-for-its-new-ai-ultra-plan-180248513.html" data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1">check out Project Genie</a>. You’ll also need to live in the US and be 18 years or older. At launch, Project Genie offers three different modes of interaction: World Sketching, exploration and remixing. The first sees Google’s <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/googles-nano-banana-pro-image-generator-leverages-gemini-3-for-improved-visuals-and-text-rendering-185505073.html" data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1">Nano Banana Pro</a> model generating the source image Genie 3 will use to create the world you will later explore. At this stage, you can describe your character, define the camera perspective — be it first-person, third-person or isometric — and how you want to explore the world Genie 3 is about to generate. Before you can jump into the model’s creation, Nano Banana Pro will “sketch” what you’re about to see so you can make tweaks. It’s also possible to write your own prompts for worlds others have used Genie to generate. One thing to keep in mind is that Genie 3 is not a game engine. While its outputs can look game-like, and it can simulate physical interactions, there aren’t traditional game mechanics here. Generations are also limited to 60 seconds, as is the presentation, which is capped at 24 frames per second and 720p. Still, if you’re an AI Ultra subscriber, this is a cool opportunity to see the bleeding edge of what DeepMind has been working over the past couple of years. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/googles-project-genie-lets-you-create-your-own-3d-interactive-worlds-183646428.html?src=rss

Jan 30, 2026

The best cheap VPN in 2026

When talking about the <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/vpn/best-vpn-130004396.html" data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1">best VPNs</a>, I frequently warn about the dangers of trusting free VPNs without verifying them. Although there are a few free VPNs worth recommending, many other free providers are ineffective, malicious or looking to profit off their users (or sometimes all three). Even the <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/vpn/best-free-vpn-120032818.html" data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1">best free VPNs</a> work a lot better once you subscribe and access their full service. This can be frustrating if you want to enjoy the <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/vpn/what-is-a-vpn-and-what-can-you-do-with-one-161549146.html" data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1">benefits of a VPN</a> but don't have the budget for yet another subscription. To help you out, I put together a list of the best paid VPN services you can get cheaply. Every name on the list comes with my full recommendation — I'll never recommend a VPN that doesn't protect you, no matter how affordable. Before I get started, I want to define "cheap," since VPNs often bamboozle the customer with muddled pricing schemes. Most providers have long-term subscription plans with big discounts, and many of them compensate by making their monthly plans more expensive. On this list, I'll recommend services with cheap subscriptions for both the short and long term, plus one favorite that balances both. <h2 id="jump-link-best-cheap-vpns-for-2026">Best cheap VPNs for 2026</h2> <core-commerce data-type="product-list" id="d1801c8d-5f2a-435c-b9f7-c0169cef4f98" data-original-url="https://surfshark.com/pricing"></core-commerce> <core-commerce data-type="product-list" id="45887d20-e400-4d17-b948-d859880d5d83" data-original-url="https://mullvad.net/en/pricing"></core-commerce> <core-commerce data-type="product-list" id="61c2683b-4954-40a9-8a41-91542c2d14d5" data-original-url="https://www.cyberghostvpn.com/buy/cyberghost-vpn-3"></core-commerce> <core-commerce data-type="product-list" id="e60b4d0e-76c0-472d-a0ea-4debfffa5ca6" data-original-url="https://windscribe.com/upgrade?cpid=homepage&pcpid=homepage&_lang=eng"></core-commerce> <core-commerce data-type="product-list" id="5bad8b95-018c-4cad-b33e-7db3b84dcfea"></core-commerce> <h2 id="jump-link-other-vpns-we-tested-with-good-deals">Other VPNs we tested with good deals</h2> A couple of VPNs have decent pricing options attached to worthy services but weren't quite strong enough to make the list. Both these services get my hearty recommendation; they're just hard to justify as "cheap." <h3 id="jump-link-expressvpn">ExpressVPN</h3> ExpressVPN recently switched to a multi-tier pricing model. The Basic pricing tier gets you complete VPN service but doesn't include the full set of features. The best price on that is $78.18 for 28 months, which works out to $2.79 per month. Although that sounds great, it's more expensive than both Surfshark and CyberGhost at the same duration and renews at the even higher price of $99.95 per year ($8.33 per month). Still, as I wrote in my full <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/vpn-review-expressvpn-2023-gaming-streaming-160052492.html" data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1">ExpressVPN review</a>, it's an outstanding service overall. Thanks to its sensible app layouts and focus on doing simple tasks well, I find it especially good for introducing beginners to what a VPN can do. <h3 id="jump-link-nordvpn">NordVPN</h3> NordVPN is another provider that I gave a <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/vpn/nordvpn-review-2025-innovative-features-a-few-missteps-163000578.html" data-i13n="cpos:5;pos:1">relatively positive review</a>. I really like its boundary-pushing features, especially the various types of highly specialized servers. Its pricing isn't bad, exactly, but even the Basic level is more expensive than just about everyone else at every duration. NordVPN's fast download speeds and wide server network make it worthwhile for lots of users, but it's hard to recommend to people on a budget. <h2 id="jump-link-what-to-look-for-in-a-good-cheap-vpn">What to look for in a good cheap VPN</h2> Looking for an affordable VPN is the same as looking for any kind of VPN; it just requires more care. The worst VPNs usually present themselves as free, but there's also a fair number of mediocre options that think low prices have to mean a mediocre service. If you want to <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/vpn/how-to-use-a-vpn-140000564.html" data-i13n="cpos:6;pos:1">use a VPN</a> but don't have much extra cash, take some additional care in a few areas of your search. First, don't subscribe to a VPN — or even download any of its apps — if you haven't verified its security. To do that, start by checking what experts have to say about it. If a VPN is truly unsafe, chances are high that somebody has already sounded the alarm. You can also check the list of protocols the VPN offers. If it's anything other than OpenVPN, WireGuard or IKEv2, do a deep dive to make sure it's using worthwhile encryption. If you've verified that the VPN isn't a virus, check to see if it has a free trial or a guaranteed money-back period. This will give you some risk-free time to do hands-on tests. Our article on <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/vpn/how-we-test-vpns-175845189.html" data-i13n="cpos:7;pos:1">how we test VPNs</a> includes several tests you can run on your own computer, phone or tablet. Check the VPN's speed, make sure it has the server locations you need and look for anything that might be leaking your real IP address. Read the VPN's privacy policy and make sure you're comfortable with how much information it saves. Some VPNs emphasize privacy more than others. Finally, before your free trial or refund period expires, make sure to double-check on the pricing structure of the VPN you're choosing — it's possible that it will only be cheap for the first subscription period.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/vpn/best-cheap-vpn-170000957.html?src=rss

Jan 30, 2026

The first season of Amazon's Fallout show is now free on Youtube

Fallout’s second season is coming to a close, and it’s been well <a data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/fallout-season-2-review-viva-new-vegas-140000678.html"><ins>worth</ins></a> the wait. But if a reluctance to add yet another subscription to your <a data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/best-streaming-services-154527042.html">streaming</a> rotation means you haven’t watched Amazon’s surprisingly excellent adaptation yet, you might be interested to know that the company is currently releasing season one for free on the <a data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1" href="https://www.youtube.com/@PrimeVideo"><ins>Prime Video</ins></a> YouTube channel. Whether driven by Amazon wanting even more people to watch what has become one of its biggest TV <a data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1" href="https://movieweb.com/fallout-season-2-streaming-viewership-update-prime-video/"><ins>success</ins></a> stories, or a move that speaks to how few people are actually signed up for Prime Video, it’s good news for anyone who hasn’t seen the show yet. Fallout’s first season did a great job of taking everything that’s great about the long-running post-apocalyptic RPG series and weaving it into a wildly entertaining live-action show, elevated by excellent performances from Ella Purnell as a hopelessly naive but endearingly optimistic vault-dweller, and Walton Goggins as the Ghoul. Amazon is currently adding a new episode each day ahead of next week’s season two finale, presumably hoping a whole new set of fans hop straight into that once they’re done. But here’s the catch: you only have until February 11 to watch the whole lot. After that, the show will be for Prime Video subscribers only once again. And that isn't the the only Fallout freebie up for grabs right now. Between now and February 5, Bethesda’s MMORPG, <a data-i13n="cpos:5;pos:1" href="https://fallout.bethesda.net/en/freeplay"><ins>Fallout 76</ins></a>, is free-to-play on Xbox and PC, while PlayStation players have until February 4. Fallout 76 first launched in 2018, and as a fully multiplayer-focused game it represented a new direction for the series. It was, to put it bluntly, a bit of a mess for quite a while, but Bethesda has never abandoned the title or its player-base, and if you have Fallout on the brain, this is the perfect opportunity to see how it’s looking in 2026.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/the-first-season-of-amazons-fallout-show-is-now-free-on-youtube-162920615.html?src=rss

Jan 30, 2026

Amazon discovered a 'high volume' of CSAM in its AI training data but isn't saying where it came from

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said it received more than 1 million reports of AI-related child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in 2025. The "vast majority" of that content was reported by Amazon, which found the material in its training data, according to an investigation by <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-01-29/amazon-found-child-sex-abuse-in-ai-training-data" data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1">Bloomberg</a>. In addition, Amazon said only that it obtained the inappropriate content from external sources used to train its AI services and claimed it could not provide any further details about where the CSAM came from. Amazon provided Engadget with the following statement to explain why it doesn’t have data that can provide any further action on what it found.“When we set up this reporting channel in 2024, we informed NCMEC that we would not have sufficient information to create actionable reports, because of the third-party nature of the scanned data. The separate channel ensures that these reports would not dilute the efficacy of our other reporting channels. Because of how this data is sourced, we don't have the data that comprises an actionable report.”"This is really an outlier," Fallon McNulty, executive director of NCMEC’s CyberTipline, told Bloomberg. The CyberTipline is where many types of US-based companies are legally required to report suspected CSAM. “Having such a high volume come in throughout the year begs a lot of questions about where the data is coming from, and what safeguards have been put in place.” She added that aside from Amazon, the AI-related reports the organization received from other companies last year included actionable data that it could pass along to law enforcement for next steps. Since Amazon isn’t disclosing sources, McNulty said its reports have proved “inactionable.”Amazon provided Engadget with these additional details, which were first reported in Bloomberg:“Amazon is committed to preventing CSAM across all of its businesses, and we are not aware of any instances of our models generating CSAM. In accordance with our commitments to responsible AI and the Generative AI Principles to Prevent Child Abuse, we take a deliberately cautious approach to scanning foundation model training data, including data from the public web, to identify and remove known CSAM and protect our customers. While our proactive safeguards cannot provide the same detail in NCMEC reports as consumer-facing tools, we stand by our commitment to responsible AI and will continue our work to prevent CSAM.”The company also reiterated that “we intentionally use an over-inclusive threshold for scanning, which yields a high percentage of false positives” to explain the high volume of content the company reported.Safety questions for minors have emerged as a critical concern for the artificial intelligence industry in recent months. CSAM has skyrocketed in NCMEC's records; compared with the more than 1 million AI-related reports the organization received last year, the 2024 total was 67,000 reports while 2023 only saw 4,700 reports. In addition to issues such as abusive content being used to train models, AI chatbots have also been implicated in several dangerous or tragic cases involving young users. <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/the-first-known-ai-wrongful-death-lawsuit-accuses-openai-of-enabling-a-teens-suicide-212058548.html" data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1">OpenAI</a> and <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/ai/another-lawsuit-blames-an-ai-company-of-complicity-in-a-teenagers-suicide-184529475.html" data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1">Character.AI</a> have both been sued after teenagers planned their suicides with those companies' platforms. <a target="_blank" class="link" href="https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-is-temporarily-pulling-teens-access-from-its-ai-chatbot-characters-180626052.html" data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1">Meta</a> is also being sued for alleged failures to protect teen users from sexually explicit conversations with chatbots.Update, January 30, 2026, 11:05AM ET: This story has been updated with several statements from Amazon.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/amazon-discovered-a-high-volume-of-csam-in-its-ai-training-data-but-isnt-saying-where-it-came-from-224749228.html?src=rss

Jan 30, 2026

Monarch Money deal: New users get one year of access for only $50

The start of the new year is a great time to get your finances in order, and a good budgeting app can help with that. Instead of laboring over a spreadsheet, you can try one of <a data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/apps/best-budgeting-apps-120036303.html">our favorite budgeting apps</a> for less than usual. <a data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:;elmt:;cpos:2;pos:1" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=1764214b-3509-4628-8631-8692fa12e904&featureId=text-link&linkText=Monarch+Money&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5tb25hcmNoLmNvbS8iLCJjb250ZW50VXVpZCI6IjE3NjQyMTRiLTM1MDktNDYyOC04NjMxLTg2OTJmYTEyZTkwNCIsIm9yaWdpbmFsVXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubW9uYXJjaC5jb20vIn0&signature=AQAAAf9OYtqtov5bl24yd1K5MnBqj85n36sOszbLnLpvqV4W&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.monarch.com%2F" class="rapid-with-clickid" data-original-link="https://www.monarch.com/">Monarch Money</a> is running a sale that gives new users 50 percent off one year of the service, bringing the final cost down to just $50. Just use the code NEWYEAR2026 at checkout to get the discount. Monarch Money makes for a capable and detailed budgeting companion. You can use the service via apps for iOS, Android, iPadOS or the web, and Monarch also offers a Chrome extension that can sync your Amazon and Target transactions and automatically categorize them. Like other budgeting apps, Monarch Money lets you connect multiple financial accounts and track your money based on where you spend it over time. Monarch offers two different approaches to tracking budgeting (flexible and category budgeting) depending on what fits your life best, and the ability to add a budget widget on your phone so you can know how you're tracking that month. <core-commerce id="78691f6e9a994323adf7b4c97f1ff66d" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.monarch.com/"></core-commerce> How budgeting apps turn your raw transactions into visuals you can understand at a glance is one of the big things that differentiates one app from another, and Monarch Money offers multiple graphs and charts to look at for things like spending, investments or categories of your choice based on how you've labelled your expenses. The app can also monitor the spending of you and your partner all in one place, to make it easier to plan together. The main drawbacks Engadget found in testing Monarch Money were the app's learning curve, and the differences in features (and bugginess) between Monarch's web and mobile versions. Still, for 50 percent off, the Monarch Money is well worth experimenting with if you're trying to save money in 2026, especially if you want to do it collaboratively with a partner. Follow <a data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1" href="https://twitter.com/EngadgetDeals">@EngadgetDeals</a> on X for the latest <a data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/deals/">tech deals</a> and <a data-i13n="cpos:5;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/best-tech/">buying advice</a>.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/monarch-money-deal-new-users-get-one-year-of-access-for-only-50-204507285.html?src=rss

Jan 30, 2026

How to watch the 2026 Grammy Awards: TV channel, start time, where to stream, nominations list and more

<figure> <img src="https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2026-01/880863a0-fd44-11f0-b7ee-011ae2d0f3e1" data-crop-orig-src="https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2026-01/64d59640-fd22-11f0-86bf-52604d265169" style="height:1821px;width:3240px;" alt="LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 05: (FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY) Bad Bunny accepts the Best Música Urbana Album for “Un Verano Sin Ti” during the 65th GRAMMY Awards at Crypto.com Arena on February 05, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Timothy Norris/FilmMagic)" data-uuid="d0d9e970-61bd-323e-9206-97c4e595c305" data-crop="height:1821;width:3240;x:179;y:189"> <figcaption> Grammy winner Bad Bunny, seen here accepting his award for Best Música Urbana Album for “Un Verano Sin Ti” in 2023, is nominated again this year. (Timothy Norris/FilmMagic) </figcaption> <div class="photo-credit"> Timothy Norris via Getty Images </div> </figure> The 2026 Grammy Awards honor music's biggest achievements of the year, and some of the biggest stars on the planet are nominated this year. Kendrick Lamar leads the way with nine nominations, including for Record and Song of the Year for "luther," his collaboration with SZA. Other top nominees this year include Lady Gaga, Jack Antonoff, and Cirkut with seven nominations apiece, and Bad Bunny, Sabrina Carpenter, and Leon Thomas, who have six. The 2026 Grammy Awards will be hosted by comedian Trevor Noah, who also happens to be a nominee this year in the Best Audio Book, Narration & Storytelling category.  The 2026 Grammys will take place at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, and the broadcast will air this Sunday, Feb. 1, at 8PM ET/5PM PT on CBS, streaming live on Paramount+ (for Premium subscribers only). The 2026 Grammy Awards Premiere Ceremony — where the majority of the Grammys are actually awarded — will take place earlier that same day, from 3:30PM ET/12:30PM PT, and streams live<a data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1" href="https://www.youtube.com/@RecordingAcademy"> free on YouTube</a>. Here’s how to watch the 2026 Grammy Awards live this Sunday. <h2 id="jump-link-when-are-the-grammy-awards">When are the 2026 Grammy Awards?</h2> The 68th Grammy Awards will be held this Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. <h2 id="jump-link-grammys-start-time">Grammys start time</h2> The Grammy Awards live TV broadcast begins at 8PM ET/5PM PT. It's scheduled to run until 11:30PM ET. Prior to the main broadcast, the 2026 Grammy Awards Premiere Ceremony (this is where you can watch the awards for categories like Musical Theater, Americana, Reggae, Metal, Gospel and more) will take place from 3:30PM ET/12:30PM PT. The Grammys Premiere Ceremony will stream live for free at <a data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1" href="http://live.grammy.com/">live.GRAMMY.com</a> and on <a data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1" href="https://www.youtube.com/@RecordingAcademy">YouTube</a>. <h2 id="jump-link-grammy-awards-tv-channel">Grammy Awards TV channel</h2> The 68th Grammy Awards will air on CBS and stream live on Paramount+ for Premium subscribers. The awards show will also be available the following day on demand for Paramount+ Essential subscribers. <h2 id="jump-link-how-to-watch-the-grammys-without-cable">How to watch the Grammys without cable</h2> <core-commerce id="65276781b7204e5d830783b786b6521f" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.paramountplus.com/home/"/> <h2 id="jump-link-how-to-watch-the-2026-grammys-free">How to watch the 2026 Grammys free</h2> <core-commerce id="914fe649a5f140459cea99b3e748dcf7" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.directv.com/stream/"/> <core-commerce id="c20c71d24f004714935a8543d7352cb7" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.fubo.tv/welcome/channels"/> <core-commerce id="70731e7d49844cbd9bfa7eaf1f87d7c8" data-type="product-list"/> <core-commerce id="2ca0717612b34bddaba52a1fc2351c99" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F542J65B"/> <h2 id="jump-link-who-is-performing-at-the-2026-grammy-awards">Who is performing at the 2026 Grammy Awards?</h2> <div id="acc46ad715654aa0bac6ea15c2d7f39c"> <iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VJPhmau5Vgk?rel=0" style="top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;position:absolute;border:0;" allowfullscreen scrolling="no" data-embed-domain="www.youtube.com"></iframe> </div> Among this year's Grammy's performers are Justin Bieber, Sabrina Carpenter, Album of the Year nominees Clipse and Pharrell Williams, and every Best New Artist nominee, including Addison Rae, Alex Warren, KATSEYE, Leon Thomas, Lola Young, Olivia Dean, SOMBR, and The Marías. This year's In Memorium honoring artists we've lost this year will include a musical tribute from Reba McEntire, Brandy Clark and Lukas Nelson, a performance from Ms. Lauryn Hill in honor of D'Angelo and Roberta Flack, and an Ozzy Osbourne tribute from artists like Post Malone, Andrew Watt, Chad Smith, Duff McKagan, and Slash. <h2 id="jump-link-who-is-hosting-the-grammys-this-year">Who is hosting the Grammys this year?</h2> Trevor Noah will return to host the Grammys for the sixth and final year. <h2 id="jump-link-who-is-presenting-at-the-2026-grammys">Who is presenting at the 2026 Grammys?</h2> While the full list of Grammys presenters has yet to be released, we do know that Harry Styles and Doechii will be presenting. <h2 id="jump-link-grammy-awards-new-categories">Grammy Awards new categories</h2> This year’s Grammys will see the return of the award for Best Album Cover (after 53 years!). This year, the category of Best Country Album will now be split into two awards: Best Contemporary Country Album and Best Traditional Country Album. <h2 id="jump-link-grammys-eligibility-window">Grammys eligibility window</h2> The 2026 Grammy Awards will recognize music released from August 31, 2024 to August 30, 2025. <h2 id="jump-link-2026-grammy-nominations">2026 Grammy nominations</h2> Here are the nominees for the 68th Grammy Awards. <h2 id="jump-link-album-of-the-year">Album of the Year</h2> <ul> <li>Bad Bunny — Debí Tirar Más Fotos</li> <li>Justin Bieber — Swag</li> <li>Sabrina Carpenter — Man’s Best Friend</li> <li>Clipse, Pusha T & Malice — Let God Sort Em Out</li> <li>Lady Gaga — Mayhem</li> <li>Kendrick Lamar — GNX</li> <li>Leon Thomas — Mutt</li> <li>Tyler, the Creator — Chromakopia</li> </ul> <h2 id="jump-link-record-of-the-year">Record of the Year</h2> <ul> <li>Bad Bunny — “DtMF”</li> <li>Sabrina Carpenter — “Manchild”</li> <li>Doechii — “Anxiety”</li> <li>Billie Eilish — “Wildflower”</li> <li>Lady Gaga — “Abracadabra”</li> <li>Kendrick Lamar feat. SZA — “Luther”</li> <li>Chappell Roan — “The Subway”</li> </ul> <h2 id="jump-link-song-of-the-year">Song of the Year</h2> <ul> <li>Lady Gaga — “Abracadabra”</li> <li>Doechii — “Anxiety”</li> <li>ROSÉ & Bruno Mars — “APT.”</li> <li>Bad Bunny — “DtMF”</li> <li>HUNTR/X (EJAE, Audrey Nuna, REI AMI) — “Golden”</li> <li>Kendrick Lamar feat. SZA — “Luther”</li> <li>Sabrina Carpenter — “Manchild”</li> <li>Billie Eilish — “Wildflower”</li> </ul> <h2 id="jump-link-best-new-artist">Best New Artist</h2> <ul> <li>Olivia Dean</li> <li>KATSEYE</li> <li>The Marías</li> <li>Addison Rae</li> <li>sombr</li> <li>Leon Thomas</li> <li>Alex Warren</li> <li>Lola Young</li> </ul> <h2 id="jump-link-best-pop-solo-performance">Best Pop Solo Performance</h2> <ul> <li>Justin Bieber — “Daisies”</li> <li>Sabrina Carpenter — “Manchild”</li> <li>Lady Gaga — “Disease”</li> <li>Chappell Roan — “The Subway”</li> <li>Lola Young — “Messy”</li> </ul> <h2 id="jump-link-best-pop-vocal-album">Best Pop Vocal Album</h2> <ul> <li>Justin Bieber — Swag</li> <li>Sabrina Carpenter — Man’s Best Friend</li> <li>Miley Cyrus — Something Beautiful</li> <li>Lady Gaga — Mayhem</li> <li>Teddy Swims — I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy (Part 2)</li> </ul> <h2 id="jump-link-best-alternative-music-album">Best Alternative Music Album</h2> <ul> <li>Bon Iver — Sable, Fable</li> <li>The Cure — Songs of a Lost World</li> <li>Tyler, the Creator — Don’t Tap the Glass</li> <li>Wet Leg — Moisturizer</li> <li>Hayley Williams — Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party</li> </ul> <h2 id="jump-link-best-rock-album">Best Rock Album</h2> <ul> <li>Deftones — Private Music</li> <li>HAIM — I Quit</li> <li>Linkin Park — From Zero</li> <li>Turnstile — Never Enough</li> <li>YUNGBLUD — Idols</li> </ul> <h2 id="jump-link-best-rap-album">Best Rap Album</h2> <ul> <li>Clipse, Pusha T & Malice — Let God Sort Em Out</li> <li>GloRilla — Glorious</li> <li>JID — God Does Like Ugly</li> <li>Kendrick Lamar — GNX</li> <li>Tyler, the Creator — Chromakopia</li> </ul> <h2 id="jump-link-best-rb-album">Best R&B Album</h2> <ul> <li>GIVĒON — Beloved</li> <li>Coco Jones — Why Not More?</li> <li>Ledisi — The Crown</li> <li>Teyana Taylor — Escape Room</li> <li>Leon Thomas — Mutt</li> </ul> <h2 id="jump-link-best-contemporary-country-album">Best Contemporary Country Album</h2> <ul> <li>Kelsea Ballerini — Patterns</li> <li>Tyler Childers — Snipe Hunter</li> <li>Eric Church — Evangeline vs. The Machine</li> <li>Jelly Roll — Beautifully Broken</li> <li>Miranda Lambert — Postcards From Texas</li> </ul> <h2 id="jump-link-best-traditional-country-album">Best Traditional Country Album</h2> <ul> <li>Charley Crockett — Dollar a Day</li> <li>Lukas Nelson — American Romance</li> <li>Willie Nelson — Oh What a Beautiful World</li> <li>Margo Price — Hard Headed Woman</li> <li>Zach Top — Ain’t In It for My Health</li> </ul> <h2 id="jump-link-producer-of-the-year-non-classical">Producer of the Year, Non-Classical</h2> <ul> <li>Dan Auerbach</li> <li>Cirkut</li> <li>Dijon</li> <li>Blake Mills</li> <li>Sounwave</li> </ul> <h2 id="jump-link-songwriter-of-the-year-non-classical">Songwriter of the Year, Non-Classical</h2> <ul> <li>Amy Allen</li> <li>Edgar Barrera</li> <li>Jessie Jo Dillon</li> <li>Tobias Jesso Jr.</li> </ul> See the full list at <a data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1" href="https://www.grammy.com/news/2026-grammys-nominations-full-winners-nominees-list">Grammy.com</a>. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/how-to-watch-the-2026-grammy-awards-tv-channel-start-time-where-to-stream-nominations-list-and-more-150015179.html?src=rss

Jan 30, 2026

Engadget Podcast: What do prediction markets like Kalshi cost us?

Somehow, we live in a world where people can bet on practically anything using sites like Polymarket and Kalshi. In this episode, Devindra and Engadget Senior Reporter Karissa Bell dive into the world of prediction markets. How did we get here? And is endless betting having an effect on the real world? Also, we chat about the new American version of TikTok, which stumbled during its first weekend with a litany of errors and reported censorship.<div><div><div style="left:0;width:100%;height:200px;position:relative;"><iframe src="https://iframely.publishing.yahoo.net/Q73mU4lb" style="top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;position:absolute;border:0;" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div></div><h2 id="jump-link-subscribe">Subscribe!</h2><ul><li><a target="_blank" rel="" class="linkDecorator_linkStyle__yM-Nh link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=9b2a3988-c5c9-4640-8e2b-1de7b2717343&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=9da64da2-5287-4bf5-a212-50110286f857&featureId=text-link&merchantName=iTunes&linkText=iTunes&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL2l0dW5lcy5hcHBsZS5jb20vdXMvcG9kY2FzdC90aGUtZW5nYWRnZXQtcG9kY2FzdC9pZDExNDI3OTA1MzA_bXQ9MiIsImNvbnRlbnRVdWlkIjoiOWRhNjRkYTItNTI4Ny00YmY1LWEyMTItNTAxMTAyODZmODU3Iiwib3JpZ2luYWxVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL2l0dW5lcy5hcHBsZS5jb20vdXMvcG9kY2FzdC90aGUtZW5nYWRnZXQtcG9kY2FzdC9pZDExNDI3OTA1MzA_bXQ9MiJ9&signature=AQAAARyZ8FreBzRgjoKlRqRQcduYm4H8CCLxfIXX2tU_s_Nw&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fpodcast%2Fthe-engadget-podcast%2Fid1142790530%3Fmt%3D2" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:iTunes;elmt:;slk:iTunes;cpos:1;pos:1" data-original-link="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-engadget-podcast/id1142790530?mt=2">iTunes</a></li><li><a target="_blank" class="linkDecorator_linkStyle__yM-Nh link rapid-with-clickid" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=9da64da2-5287-4bf5-a212-50110286f857&featureId=text-link&linkText=Spotify&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL29wZW4uc3BvdGlmeS5jb20vc2hvdy8zRUMzZE1JUkI5OWRrdm9TQmVTTzdHP3NpPWY3VUFMR0ttUkRXdE9yVThaNC11aVEiLCJjb250ZW50VXVpZCI6IjlkYTY0ZGEyLTUyODctNGJmNS1hMjEyLTUwMTEwMjg2Zjg1NyIsIm9yaWdpbmFsVXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly9vcGVuLnNwb3RpZnkuY29tL3Nob3cvM0VDM2RNSVJCOTlka3ZvU0JlU083Rz9zaT1mN1VBTEdLbVJEV3RPclU4WjQtdWlRIn0&signature=AQAAASMf7sU61Ncc3cnaoGJo0PthvUTlPaWYAhAJxf05TJ9v&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fopen.spotify.com%2Fshow%2F3EC3dMIRB99dkvoSBeSO7G%3Fsi%3Df7UALGKmRDWtOrU8Z4-uiQ" data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:;elmt:;slk:Spotify;cpos:2;pos:1" data-original-link="https://open.spotify.com/show/3EC3dMIRB99dkvoSBeSO7G?si=f7UALGKmRDWtOrU8Z4-uiQ">Spotify</a></li><li><a target="_blank" class="linkDecorator_linkStyle__yM-Nh link" href="http://pca.st/mlY3" data-i13n="slk:Pocket Casts;cpos:3;pos:1">Pocket Casts</a></li><li><a target="_blank" class="linkDecorator_linkStyle__yM-Nh link" href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/engadget/the-engadget-podcast" data-i13n="slk:Stitcher;cpos:4;pos:1">Stitcher</a></li><li><a target="_blank" class="linkDecorator_linkStyle__yM-Nh link" href="https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRzLnNvdW5kY2xvdWQuY29tL3VzZXJzL3NvdW5kY2xvdWQ6dXNlcnM6MjQ1MjIwOTU4L3NvdW5kcy5yc3M&ep=14" data-i13n="slk:Google Podcasts;cpos:5;pos:1">Google Podcasts</a></li></ul><h2 id="jump-link-topics">Topics</h2><ul><li>Who’s going to buy the Samsung Galaxy Z Tri-fold for $2900? – 1:18</li><li>Tesla is killing off the Model X and S lines to focus on its Optimus robot moonshot – 6:46</li><li>Amazon plans to cut 16,000 jobs and close its grocery stores in another round of restructuring – 10:45</li><li>Most of the UK will lose access to Pornhub in a fight over age verification and privacy – 21:16</li><li>Internal messages from Meta about Instagram being ‘a drug’ for teens could be bombshell evidence at trial – 26:59</li><li>What are prediction markets and why are they suddenly so popular? – 32:11</li><li>As TikTok US stumbles, users ask ‘is it server problems or censorship?’ – 46:55</li><li>Around Engadget – 59:11</li><li>Pop culture picks – 1:01:23 </li></ul><h2 id="jump-link-credits">Credits</h2>Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Karissa Bell Producer: Ben Ellman Music: Dale North and Terrence O’BrienThis article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/engadget-podcast-what-do-prediction-markets-like-kalshi-cost-us-143113799.html?src=rss

Jan 30, 2026

The Disney+ and Hulu bundle is on sale for $10 for one month

You have the best chance to save on <a data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/best-streaming-services-154527042.html">streaming services</a> during the holiday shopping season, but throughout the year, the occasional deal pops up that's worth considering. Case in point: this new Disney+ deal. New and eligible returning subscribers can sign up for the <a data-i13n="elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:Disney+;elmt:;cpos:2;pos:1" href="https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=85d85ef3-fac9-418f-9573-418cf162cd0c&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=c4b6e8a2-981f-4fc9-b476-d49dcaeed4ba&featureId=text-link&merchantName=Disney%2B&linkText=Disney%2B+Hulu+bundle&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5kaXNuZXlwbHVzLmNvbS8iLCJjb250ZW50VXVpZCI6ImM0YjZlOGEyLTk4MWYtNGZjOS1iNDc2LWQ0OWRjYWVlZDRiYSIsIm9yaWdpbmFsVXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZGlzbmV5cGx1cy5jb20vIn0&signature=AQAAAYlgNIZqhCWI5a9GYTTCBjANZc2imSHnwOrLtdthLEQF&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.disneyplus.com%2F" class="rapid-with-clickid" data-original-link="https://www.disneyplus.com/">Disney+ Hulu bundle</a> (with ads) for $10 for one month of access. That's $3 off the usual price of the bundle for one month, and more than 58 percent off if you consider the cost of each service individually (Disney+ at $12 per month and, separately, Hulu also at $12 per month). We'd be remiss if we didn't mention that this isn't quite as good as the Black Friday deal we saw last year, which offered the same bundle for $5 per month for one year. However, if you missed that offer or just want to try out Disney+ and Hulu for a brief period of time, this is a good way to do so. <core-commerce id="b28a2c9fc4054925875eb91d0c7e1cbe" data-type="product-list" data-original-url="https://www.disneyplus.com/"></core-commerce> Disney+ and Hulu make one of the most balanced streaming pairs available, blending family-friendly favorites with acclaimed originals and network TV staples. Disney+ brings a vast library of animated classics, blockbuster franchises and exclusive content from Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars and National Geographic. It’s the place to stream nearly every Star Wars film and series, plus the full Marvel Cinematic Universe lineup and Disney’s most recent theatrical releases. Hulu balances things out with a more adult-oriented lineup of current TV shows, next-day network episodes and a growing roster of award-winning originals. The platform hosts series like The Bear, The Handmaid’s Tale and Only Murders in the Building, alongside comedies, thrillers and documentaries that regularly feature in awards conversations. It’s also the home for next-day streaming of ABC and FX shows, making it especially useful if you’ve already cut the cable cord but still want to keep up with primetime TV. The Duo Basic bundle ties these two services together under a single subscription, offering a simple way to expand your library without juggling multiple accounts. This tier includes ads on both platforms, but the trade-off is significant savings compared with paying for each service separately. For many households, that’s an acceptable compromise when it means access to such a wide range of content. Follow <a data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1" href="https://twitter.com/EngadgetDeals">@EngadgetDeals</a> on X for the latest <a data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/deals/">tech deals</a> and <a data-i13n="cpos:5;pos:1" href="https://www.engadget.com/best-tech/">buying advice</a>.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-disney-and-hulu-bundle-is-on-sale-for-10-for-one-month-192814872.html?src=rss

LWN

Feb 2, 2026

Git 2.53.0 released

Feb 2, 2026

[$] Modernizing swapping: introducing the swap table

Feb 2, 2026

Security updates for Monday

Feb 1, 2026

Kernel prepatch 6.19-rc8

Jan 30, 2026

[$] Compiling Rust to readable C with Eurydice

Jan 30, 2026

The Award for Excellence in Open Source goes to Greg Kroah-Hartman

Jan 30, 2026

Three stable kernel updates

Jan 30, 2026

Security updates for Friday

Jan 29, 2026

A proposed governance structure for openSUSE

Jan 29, 2026

[$] Sub-schedulers for sched_ext

Jan 29, 2026

Security updates for Thursday

Jan 29, 2026

[$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for January 29, 2026

Jan 28, 2026

Mourning Didier Spaier

Jan 28, 2026

OSI pauses 2026 board election cycle

Jan 28, 2026

[$] Open source for phones: postmarketOS

Cloudflare Blog

Jan 30, 2026

Google’s AI advantage: why crawler separation is the only path to a fair Internet

Jan 30, 2026

Building vertical microfrontends on Cloudflare’s platform

Jan 29, 2026

Introducing Moltworker: a self-hosted personal AI agent, minus the minis

Jan 27, 2026

Building a serverless, post-quantum Matrix homeserver

Jan 26, 2026

Cable cuts, storms, and DNS: a look at Internet disruptions in Q4 2025

Jan 23, 2026

Route leak incident on January 22, 2026

Jan 19, 2026

How we mitigated a vulnerability in Cloudflare’s ACME validation logic

Jan 16, 2026

Astro is joining Cloudflare

Jan 15, 2026

Human Native is joining Cloudflare

Jan 14, 2026

What came first: the CNAME or the A record?

Jan 13, 2026

What we know about Iran’s Internet shutdown

Jan 6, 2026

A closer look at a BGP anomaly in Venezuela

Dec 22, 2025

How Workers powers our internal maintenance scheduling pipeline

Dec 19, 2025

Code Orange: Fail Small — our resilience plan following recent incidents

Dec 19, 2025

Innovating to address streaming abuse — and our latest transparency report

Dec 18, 2025

Announcing support for GROUP BY, SUM, and other aggregation queries in R2 SQL

Dec 15, 2025

The 2025 Cloudflare Radar Year in Review: The rise of AI, post-quantum, and record-breaking DDoS attacks

Dec 15, 2025

ChatGPT's rivals, Kwai's quiet rise: the top Internet services of 2025

Dec 11, 2025

React2Shell and related RSC vulnerabilities threat brief: early exploitation activity and threat actor techniques

Dec 9, 2025

Shifting left at enterprise scale: how we manage Cloudflare with Infrastructure as Code

NPR

Feb 2, 2026

Populist conservative Laura Fernández wins Costa Rica's presidential election

Feb 2, 2026

What Jared Kushner's 'New Gaza' plan includes, and what it leaves out

Feb 2, 2026

Trump administration sued over visa freeze on immigrants from 75 countries

Feb 2, 2026

U.S. sledder Katie Uhlaender appeal denied, won't race at Milan Cortina Olympics

Feb 2, 2026

The Trump Administration exempts new nuclear reactors from environmental review

Feb 2, 2026

The 'Melania' movie audience: Older white women

Feb 2, 2026

Trump says he's closing the Kennedy Center for renovations. We have questions

Feb 2, 2026

A major census test faces cutbacks — with postal workers tapped to help count

Feb 2, 2026

N.Y. Republican met with jeers over ICE tactics during town hall in swing district

Feb 2, 2026

Meet Milo and Tina, the 'first openly Gen Z' Olympic mascots

The Onion

Feb 3, 2026

Starbucks Reintroduces Tiers To Loyalty Program

Feb 3, 2026

Pacers PA Announcer Just Muttering ‘Jesus Christ’ Over And Over

Feb 2, 2026

White House Aide Fired After Telling JD Vance About Super Bowl Party

Feb 2, 2026

Tall Man, Bald Child Duos Applaud Representation In New ‘Game Of Thrones’ Show

Feb 2, 2026

Conservative Defends Child Molesters In Case He Becomes Child Molester Someday

Feb 2, 2026

Groundhog Harassed By Dipshits In Stupid Hats

Feb 2, 2026

Fans Explain Why They Love K-Pop

Feb 2, 2026

White House Denies Flickering, Green Trump A Hologram

Feb 2, 2026

DOJ Releases Jeffrey Epstein Fragrance

Feb 2, 2026

Mark Platz

Feb 2, 2026

Pros And Cons Of Social Media Bans For Teens

Feb 1, 2026

Melania Trump Documentary Fails To Sell Tickets

New Scientist

Feb 2, 2026

Ants attack their nest-mates because pollution changes their smell

Feb 2, 2026

Melatonin gummies as sleep aids for children: What are the risks?

Feb 2, 2026

A huge cloud of dark matter may be lurking near our solar system

Feb 2, 2026

Treating cancer before 3pm could help patients live longer

Feb 2, 2026

The secret signals our organs send to repair tissues and slow ageing

Feb 2, 2026

Neanderthals and early humans may have interbred over a vast area

Jan 28, 2026

It would be a mistake to rush into an under-16 social media ban

Jan 30, 2026

Why people can have Alzheimer's-related brain damage but no symptoms

Feb 2, 2026

CRISPR grapefruit without the bitterness are now in development

Jan 27, 2026

Nobel prizewinner Omar Yaghi says his invention will change the world

Feb 1, 2026

The best new popular science books of February 2026

Jan 28, 2026

Bored of snakes and ladders? Some maths can help bring back the fun

Jan 28, 2026

Ancient humans were seafaring far earlier than we realised

Jan 28, 2026

A remarkable book on quantum mechanics reveals a really big idea

Jan 26, 2026

The daring idea that time is an illusion and how we could prove it

Jan 30, 2026

Can we genetically improve humans using George Church’s famous list?

Jan 30, 2026

Elon Musk is making a big bet on his future vision – will it work?

Jan 30, 2026

Yawning has an unexpected influence on the fluid inside your brain

Jan 30, 2026

The best new science fiction books of February 2026

Jan 30, 2026

How an 1800s vaccine drive beat smallpox in Denmark in just 7 years

Jan 30, 2026

Our verdict on Annie Bot: This novel about a sex robot split opinions

Jan 30, 2026

Read an extract from Juice by Tim Winton

Jan 30, 2026

Tim Winton: 'Sometimes I think we use the word dystopia as an opiate'

Jan 28, 2026

New Scientist recommends pioneering artist Ryoji Ikeda's new work

Jan 29, 2026

The universe may be hiding a fundamentally unknowable quantum secret

Jan 28, 2026

This virus infects most of us – but why do only some get very ill?

Jan 30, 2026

This doctor is on the hunt for people with first-rate faeces

Jan 28, 2026

Fascinating but flawed book explores how sickness shapes our lives

Jan 29, 2026

AI-assisted mammograms cut risk of developing aggressive breast cancer

Jan 29, 2026

Our lifespans may be half down to genes and half to the environment

Jan 29, 2026

Polar bears are getting fatter in the fastest-warming place on Earth

Jan 29, 2026

Faecal transplants could boost the effectiveness of cancer treatments

Jan 28, 2026

How your health is being commodified by social media

Jan 28, 2026

Engaging look at friction shows how it keeps our world rubbing along

Jan 28, 2026

Think of a card, any card – but make it science

Jan 28, 2026

Huge fossil bonanza preserves 512-million-year-old ecosystem

Jan 27, 2026

We have a new way to explain why we agree on the nature of reality

Jan 28, 2026

We're getting closer to growing a brain in a lab dish

Jan 28, 2026

Most complex time crystal yet has been made inside a quantum computer

Jan 27, 2026

Amazon is getting drier as deforestation shuts down atmospheric rivers

Jan 27, 2026

To halt measles' resurgence we must fight the plague of misinformation

Jan 27, 2026

Our brains play a surprising role in recovering from a heart attack

Jan 26, 2026

Stick shaped by ancient humans is the oldest known wooden tool

Jan 26, 2026

Menstrual pad could give women insights into their changing fertility

Jan 26, 2026

The best map of dark matter has revealed never-before-seen structures

Jan 26, 2026

Termination shock could make the cost of climate damage even higher

Jan 20, 2026

The 3 best ways to tackle anxiety, according to a leading expert

Jan 23, 2026

Why did magic mushrooms evolve? We may finally have the answer

Jan 23, 2026

SpaceX’s Starlink dodged 300,000 satellite collisions in 2025

Jan 26, 2026

Embracing sauna culture can lower dementia risk and boost brain health

Jan 21, 2026

How – and why – we chose the best 21 ideas of the 21st century

Jan 26, 2026

Mars's gravity may help control Earth’s cycle of ice ages

Jan 21, 2026

How to spot the lunar X and V

Jan 19, 2026

Realising the importance of our microbiome: Best ideas of the century

Jan 19, 2026

Embracing quantum spookiness: Best ideas of the century

Jan 21, 2026

Let's nitpick about the physics of Stranger Things, not its ending

Jan 19, 2026

Crowdsourcing Wikipedia’s encyclopedia: Best ideas of the century

Jan 19, 2026

The totemic 1.5°C climate target: Best ideas of the century

Jan 19, 2026

We can block the spread of HIV: Best ideas of the century

Jan 21, 2026

Peter F. Hamilton's latest is an epic slice of sci-fi – with one flaw

Jan 19, 2026

New Scientist’s guide to the 21 best ideas of the 21st century

Jan 23, 2026

Bone cancer therapy unexpectedly makes tumours less painful

Jan 19, 2026

We can rewrite our genetic code: Best ideas of the century

Jan 23, 2026

Sea turtles may be more resilient to global warming than we thought

Jan 19, 2026

The one diet that’s good for everything: Best ideas of the century

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The electrification of everything: Best ideas of the century

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Our solar system is extremely weird: Best ideas of the century

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Smartphones (yes, really): Best ideas of the century

Jan 23, 2026

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The hidden power of epigenetics: Best ideas of the century

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End-to-end encryption: Best ideas of the century

Jan 19, 2026

Revealing the epic story of ancient humans: Best ideas of the century

Jan 19, 2026

How fear drastically shapes ecosystems: Best ideas of the century

Jan 23, 2026

Hybrid megapests evolving in Brazil are a threat to crops worldwide

Jan 19, 2026

The one innovation that supercharged AI: Best ideas of the century

Jan 19, 2026

There’s no such thing as a normal brain: Best ideas of the century

Jan 19, 2026

Filming the universe’s biggest dramas: Best ideas of the century

Jan 19, 2026

A revolution in how we do chemistry: Best ideas of the century

Jan 19, 2026

Pinning extreme weather on climate change: Best ideas of the century

Jan 23, 2026

Why biological clocks get our 'true age' wrong – and how AI could help

Jan 21, 2026

New Scientist recommends Avatar: Fire and Ash – especially the whale

Jan 22, 2026

Our oral microbiome could hold the key to preventing obesity

Jan 21, 2026

Stunning images reveal the rich biodiversity of remotest Tanzania

Jan 21, 2026

Can we battle the downsides of a rule-based world, asks a new book

Jan 22, 2026

Ancient bacterium discovery rewrites the origins of syphilis

Jan 22, 2026

Ancient giant kangaroos could have hopped despite their huge size

Jan 19, 2026

The invention of net zero: Best ideas of the century

Jan 19, 2026

The immense interconnectivity of the brain: Best ideas of the century

Jan 21, 2026

The internet feels super lonely right now. Here's why

Jan 22, 2026

Does limiting social media help teens? We'll finally get some evidence

Jan 21, 2026

Ape-like hominin Paranthropus was more adaptable than we thought

Jan 22, 2026

Strips of dried placenta help wounds heal with less scarring

Jan 21, 2026

We were wrong about being able to 'nudge' people to improve the world

Jan 22, 2026

Piercing crocodile close-up wins ecology photo competition

Jan 21, 2026

Natural ovulation the best option before an IVF frozen embryo transfer

Jan 21, 2026

Our earliest vertebrate ancestors may have had four eyes

Jan 21, 2026

Oldest known rock art is a 68,000-year-old hand stencil with claws

Jan 21, 2026

Bird retinas work without oxygen, and now scientists know how

Jan 21, 2026

Alex Garland’s The Bone Temple is brutal, brilliant - and mind-blowing

Jan 21, 2026

Octopuses prompt rethink of why animals evolve big brains

Phys

Feb 3, 2026

Media misuse of 'hard-right' label risks normalizing extremist views, study says

Feb 3, 2026

In Sweden, young adults feel most dissatisfied while the oldest thrive

Feb 3, 2026

The hidden role of the built environment in campus disaster preparedness

Feb 3, 2026

What are the warning signs of financial abuse?

Feb 3, 2026

New data tool boosts preparedness for potentially deadly flooding

Feb 3, 2026

AI model forecasts coral heat stress on Florida reefs up to six weeks ahead

Feb 2, 2026

Tibet's tectonic clash: New satellite view suggests weaker fault lines

Feb 2, 2026

Human–AI relationships in fiction: Theoretical cultural framework developed to understand AI representations

Feb 2, 2026

Bubble bots: Simple biocompatible microrobots autonomously target tumors

Feb 2, 2026

Black and Latino teens show stronger digital literacy than white peers

Feb 2, 2026

Unraveling the physics behind Kamchatka's 73-year earthquake cycle

Feb 2, 2026

Two essential coral species are now functionally extinct—but should we give up hope?

Feb 2, 2026

Using data to reduce subjectivity in landslide susceptibility mapping

Feb 2, 2026

Designing the future of metabolic health through tissue-selective drug delivery

Feb 2, 2026

Unexpected climate feedback links Antarctic ice sheet with reduced carbon uptake

Feb 2, 2026

Discovery of a photophobic response in Apusomonads reveals insights into Opisthokont origins

Feb 2, 2026

Distinct isotopes of combustion-derived water vapor identified

Feb 2, 2026

Automating microfluidic chip design: Hybrid approach combines machine learning with fluid mechanics

Feb 2, 2026

Identifying mechanisms that support nanoparticle therapy for autoimmune diseases

Feb 2, 2026

Swarm of earthquakes jolts California's San Ramon area—largest so far is 4.2

Feb 2, 2026

Poverty intervention program in Bangladesh may reinforce gender gaps, study shows

Feb 2, 2026

Web-based tool visualizes catalyst 'gene' profiles to speed materials design

Feb 2, 2026

Climate enters the overshoot era—science and policy need to react

Feb 2, 2026

Catalonia's climate was wetter 10 million years ago

Feb 2, 2026

Sustainable polyurethane production without toxic isocyanate

Feb 2, 2026

Hybrid AI-physics method developed for accurate aerosol remote sensing

Feb 2, 2026

Real-time single-event position detection using high-radiation-tolerance GaN

Feb 2, 2026

Researchers identify key gene for enhancing oil yield and quality in Jatropha

Feb 2, 2026

Scientists uncover dual role of sulfate-reducing bacteria in pipeline steel corrosion

Feb 2, 2026

Newly identified RNA molecule may drive cancer patient survival

Quanta

Feb 2, 2026

How Modern and Antique Technologies Reveal a Dynamic Cosmos

Jan 30, 2026

Once Thought To Support Neurons, Astrocytes Turn Out To Be in Charge

Jan 28, 2026

Networks Hold the Key to a Decades-Old Problem About Waves

Jan 26, 2026

Is Particle Physics Dead, Dying, or Just Hard?

Jan 23, 2026

Monster Neutrino Could Be a Messenger of Ancient Black Holes

PC Gamer

Feb 3, 2026

If you want to get caught up with Larian's pre-Baldur's Gate work, $157 worth of Divinity games are on sale on Steam for $23

Feb 3, 2026

'Do they really need marketing for Elder Scrolls 6?' Skyrim lead designer says Bethesda probably won't make a TV show for The Elder Scrolls because it's already making 'literally billions of dollars'

Feb 3, 2026

Animators are fuming after Adobe announces it's killing Adobe Animate, the Flash animation tool that defined the look of early web games

Feb 2, 2026

Will Take-Two announce another Grand Theft Auto 6 delay tomorrow?

Feb 2, 2026

A pioneering PC survival horror trilogy is going free-to-keep on GOG, so maybe you can look past the early '90s jank

Feb 2, 2026

Bethesda keeps the Fallout remaster hopium flowing by showing Aaron Moten inside Fallout 3 and New Vegas

Feb 2, 2026

Skyrim lead praises Todd Howard for trying 'desperately' not to micromanage and be a ‘bottleneck’, even though he still 'does what he calls seagulling where he swoops in and changes things'

Feb 2, 2026

Larian publishing chief wades into the fray, says Morrowind updated with a modern combat system 'would sell like f**king hotcakes'

Feb 2, 2026

Steam Controller re-review: A fresh look at Valve's flawed but influential 10-year-old controller

Feb 2, 2026

Cairn developers 'couldn't be happier' as they celebrate 200,000 copies sold: 'We hope you feel the passion we baked into the mountain'

Feb 2, 2026

'Everybody who worked at Nvidia in the early days really wanted to make a game console' says senior VP of engineering Andrew Bell: 'Selfishly, a little bit, we built Shield for ourselves'

Feb 2, 2026

The world's largest manga piracy site has been shut down with its operator under criminal investigation

Feb 2, 2026

Skyrim's lead designer thinks Bethesda should stick to its in-house engine: 'The benefits that you get from switching to Unreal Engine are probably not going to materialise until two titles down the road'

Feb 2, 2026

CachyOS isn't joining new Linux gaming distro collab, says it doesn't think a 'collective with strings attached' is necessary

Feb 2, 2026

'What a disappointment': Arc Raiders players aren't happy with the latest Trophy Display project, namely because there's no trophy at the end of it

Feb 2, 2026

Puget Systems crowns the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K as the most reliable processor in its consumer PCs, with Nvidia Founders Edition cards leading the charge for GPUs

Feb 2, 2026

Moltbook is like Reddit but only AI agents are allowed—though after spending hours trawling through threads, it looks more like a huge, unhinged roleplay server to me

Feb 2, 2026

This Frankenstein-ed RTX 5070 Ti with a hole in it has just set a world record benchmark score and it's the most cursed-looking graphics card I've ever seen

Feb 2, 2026

'TSMC needs to work very hard this year because I need a lot of wafers' says Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang outside a 'trillion-dollar dinner' for top tech manufacturers in Taiwan

Feb 2, 2026

id Software's second FPS only brought in $5,000, and the studio might not have made Wolfenstein and Doom if the game hadn't made a dev fall out of his chair: 'That was just one of the craziest things in a videogame I'd ever seen'

Feb 1, 2026

2 days after promising it was still 'worthy of your investment,' the most successful Kickstarter MMO ever was canceled and its team laid off: 'The developers and staff acted in good faith and deserved better'

Feb 1, 2026

'We need to get the funniest person we can possibly find': Helldivers 2's lead writer had seven days to cast John Helldiver, the face of the game's beloved intro cinematic

Feb 1, 2026

'What the f**k': Iron Lung creator puzzled as Markiplier's film adaptation quadruples its budget in one day, beating out Melania and Send Help at the box office

Feb 1, 2026

Five new Steam games you probably missed (February 2, 2026)

Feb 1, 2026

21 years after release, Guild Wars 1 just got an 'Ironman' mode inspired by a venerable community-driven challenge

Feb 1, 2026

The whole Fallout series is at a steep discount on Steam, so if you've been waiting 29 years to begin your journey in the wasteland, your time is now

Feb 1, 2026

Can you guess which game these competitive rank crests are from?

Feb 1, 2026

'Anyone mad is a cheater:' Players are divided as Rust beefs up anti-cheat with more effective—and invasive—upgrades

Feb 1, 2026

One of BioShock Infinite's best narrative devices is its music

Feb 1, 2026

Videogame merch is basically diet cosplay, and I'm desperate for more brands to get in on being more fashionably nerdy

Feb 1, 2026

Get the complete editions of Civilization 4, 5 and 6 plus a bunch more games for $15 in Humble Bundle's The Sid Meier Collection

Feb 1, 2026

Thirty years after launch, this classic space combat sim just got updated to work on modern systems and released for free

Feb 1, 2026

On-Together is the first focus tool videogame I've used that understands the importance of partnered-up productivity

Feb 1, 2026

February is surprisingly light on cozy game launches but we're looking forward to these chill picks you shouldn't miss

Feb 1, 2026

Over a decade since launch, this cooperative dungeon crawler is getting a double-barrelled update that overhauls its magic system, dungeon generation, and much more

Feb 1, 2026

Cities: Skylines 2's new developer breaks cover on its plans for the sequel's future, revealing a patch that will include changes players 'have been requesting for a long time'

Feb 1, 2026

I didn't even know I was bothered by how bad Skyrim's NPCs look during the split second they're opening doors, and now a modder's pointed it out the mod to fix it has become essential

Feb 1, 2026

Larian made a chill beats Baldur's Gate 3 animation full of references to popular mods and memes

Jan 31, 2026

Terra Invicta review

Jan 31, 2026

Skyrim's design lead says if you play Morrowind today, you will 'cringe': 'The reality of playing Morrowind would not stand the test of time'

Jan 31, 2026

The company that made a Dark Souls tabletop RPG is doing the same for Elden Ring Nightreign, and honestly, that's harder to imagine

Jan 31, 2026

A mega-mod is kicking GTA 5 into 2026 thanks to one hobbyist creator and roughly 20,000 aggressively placed trees and street props

Jan 31, 2026

Highguard adds an experimental 5v5 mode with longer respawns during raids, though it's 'not meant to replace 3s'

Jan 31, 2026

Deadlock now lets you avoid certain heroes when queuing for a game, but you can't avoid the newest ones

Jan 31, 2026

Moroccan pirate queen Sayyida al-Hurra was largely omitted from history books, but now she's in Civilization 7 thanks to a professor's curiosity and years of research

Jan 31, 2026

Jeffrey Epstein was banned from Xbox Live

Jan 31, 2026

Any remake of GTA 4 must preserve its minigames and misery

Jan 31, 2026

The best Elder Scrolls game that isn't an Elder Scrolls game is getting a big patch in February and free DLC in March

Jan 31, 2026

In a beautifully ironic twist, a YouTuber attempting a pacifist run of Bully discovered a secret weapon hidden for almost 20 years: 'I can see why they tried to lock it inside a building'

Jan 31, 2026

Old-school MMO Project: Gorgon launches into 1.0 with an update that adds 'by far the largest and most complex map we've ever made'

IEEE Spectrum

Feb 2, 2026

IEEE Considers Safety Guidelines for Neurotech Consumer Products

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/ramses-alcaide-wearing-over-ear-headphones-while-concentrating-on-a-laptop-computer-screen.jpg?id=63707527&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=156%2C0%2C156%2C0"/> Nonmedical devices that read brainwaves, such as smart <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/muse-headband" target="_self">headbands</a>, <a href="https://www.neurable.com/about" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">headphones</a>, and <a href="https://www.narbis.shop/collections/frontpage/products/narbis-system-1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">glasses</a>, are becoming more popular among consumers. The products claim to make users more productive, creative, and healthier. <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/" target="_self">IEEE Spectrum</a> previewed several of these <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ces-2026-preview?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=hero&utm_campaign=hero-2026-01-05&utm_content=hero1" target="_self">smart wearables</a> that were introduced at this year’s <a href="https://www.ces.tech/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Consumer Electronics Show</a> (CES) in Las Vegas.Since the wearable, noninvasive neurotech products aren’t medical devices, they are <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/chapter/bookseries/abs/pii/S2589295920300199" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">not subject to the same forms of regulation</a>—which can lead to gaps in their safety and <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/privacy-health-tech-seniors" target="_self">data privacy</a>, as well as their effect on users’ brains.<a href="https://www.unesco.org/en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">UNESCO</a> in November adopted the first global <a href="https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/ethics-neurotechnology-unesco-adopts-first-global-standard-cutting-edge-technology" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ethical standard</a> for neurotechnologies, establishing guidelines to protect users’ mental privacy, freedom of thought, and human rights. In 2019 the <a href="https://www.oecd.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development</a> issued responsible-neurotechnology <a href="https://legalinstruments.oecd.org/en/instruments/OECD-LEGAL-0457" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">recommendations</a>. But there are no socio-technical standards for manufacturers to follow.In response, the <a href="https://brain.ieee.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Brain technical community</a> is developing the IEEE P7700 standard: “<a href="https://standards.ieee.org/ieee/7700/11038/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Recommended Practice for the Responsible Design and Development of Neurotechnologies</a>.”The proposed standard is being designed to provide a uniform set of definitions and a methodology to assess the ethical and socio-technical considerations and practices regarding the design, development, and use of neurotechnologies including wearable neurodevices for the brain, says <a href="https://sites.psu.edu/neuroethicslab/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Laura Y. Cabrera</a>, the standard’s working group chair. Cabrera, an IEEE senior member, is an associate professor in the engineering science and mechanics department at <a href="https://www.psu.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pennsylvania State University</a> in University Park. Her research focuses on the ethical and societal implications of neurotechnologies.“IEEE P7700 addresses the unique characteristics of the technology and its impact on individuals and society, in particular, as it moves from therapeutic users to a wide variety of consumers,” she says.The standard is sponsored by the <a href="https://technologyandsociety.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology</a>.<h2>Concern over long-term effects</h2>The multilayered complexity of technologies that interface with the brain and nervous system presents considerations to those developing them, Cabrera says.“There may be long-term consequences in our brains with these types of technologies,” she says. “Maybe if they were used for a short period of time, there might not be significant consequences. But what are the effects over time?”Patients using approved brain-stimulation technology, for example, are told of its risks and benefits, but the long-term effects of headbands to improve students’ attention span aren’t known.“IEEE P7700 addresses the unique characteristics of the technology and its impact on individuals and society, in particular, as it moves from therapeutic users to a wide variety of consumers.”IEEE P7700 will address potential risks to individuals and possible negative impacts on society, Cabrera says. That includes creating guardrails to prevent harm, she adds.The cultural implications of using neurotechnologies that interface with the brain also need to be considered, she says, because people have different views.“The brain is considered the seed of the self and the organ that orchestrates all our thoughts, behaviors, feelings, and emotions,” she says. “The brain is really central to who we are.”<h2>Developing an ethical framework</h2>For the past five years, the <a href="https://brain.ieee.org/" target="_blank">IEEE Brain community</a>’s neuroethics committee has been developing a <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ethical-guidelines-in-the-works-for-developers-of-brain-technologies" target="_self">framework</a> to evaluate the ethical, legal, social, and cultural issues that could emerge from use of the technology. The document covers nine types of applications, including those used for wellness.Because more devices kept entering the market, IEEE Brain decided in 2023 that it was time to begin drafting a standard.Members of its working group come from Argentina, China, Japan, Italy, Switzerland, and the United States. Participants include developers, engineers, ethicists, lawyers, and social science researchers.The standard, Cabrera says, will be the first socio-technical standard aimed at fostering the ethical and responsible innovation of neurotechnology that meets societal and community values at an international level. P7700 will include a how-to guide, criteria for evaluating each suggested process, and case studies to help with the interpretation and practical use of the standard, she says.“Our applied ethical approach uses a responsible research and innovation method to enable developers, researchers, users, and regulators to anticipate and address ethical and sociocultural implications of neurotechnologies, mitigating negative unintended consequences while increasing community support and engagement with innovators,” Cabrera says.The working group is seeking additional participants to help refine the process, tools, and recommendations.“There are a variety of people who can contribute their expertise,” she says, “including academics, data scientists, government program leaders, policymakers, lawyers, social scientists, and users.”Cabrera says she anticipates the standard will be published early next year.You can register to <a href="https://development.standards.ieee.org/myproject-web/public/view.html#/interest/9521" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">participate in the standard’s development here</a>.

Feb 2, 2026

Don’t Regulate AI Models. Regulate AI Use

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/silhouettes-looking-at-screens-sit-behind-a-building-shape-with-the-scales-of-justice-in-a-digital-grid-patterned-setting.jpg?id=63516186&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=277%2C0%2C278%2C0"/> At times, it can seem like efforts to regulate and rein in AI are <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-ethics-governance" target="_blank">everything, everywhere, all at once</a>.China issued the first <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/02/tracing-the-roots-of-chinas-ai-regulations?lang=en" target="_blank">AI-specific regulations in 2021</a>. The focus is squarely on providers and content governance, enforced through platform control and recordkeeping requirements. In Europe, the <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20230601STO93804/eu-ai-act-first-regulation-on-artificial-intelligence" target="_blank">European Union AI Act</a> dates to 2024, but the European Commission is already proposing <a href="https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/digital-omnibus-ai-regulation-proposal" target="_blank">updates and simplification</a>.India charged its senior technical advisors with creating an AI governance system, which they <a href="https://static.pib.gov.in/WriteReadData/specificdocs/documents/2025/nov/doc2025115685601.pdf" target="_blank">released</a> in November 2025.In the United States, the states are <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/financial-services/artificial-intelligence-legislation-database" target="_blank">legislating</a> and enforcing their own AI rules even as the federal government in 2025 <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/12/eliminating-state-law-obstruction-of-national-artificial-intelligence-policy/" target="_blank">moved to prevent state action and loosen the reins</a>. This leads to a critical question for American engineers and policymakers alike: What can the U.S. actually enforce in a way that reduces real-world harm? My answer: Regulate AI use, not the underlying models.<h2>Why model-centric regulation fails</h2>Proposals to license “frontier” training runs, restrict open weights, or require permission before publishing models, such as California’s <a href="https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB53/id/3270002" target="_blank">Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act, </a>promise control but deliver theater. Model weights and code are digital artifacts; once released, by a lab, a leak, or a foreign competitor, they replicate at near-zero cost. You can’t unpublish weights, geofence research, or prevent distillation into smaller models. Trying to bottle up artifacts yields two bad outcomes: Compliant firms drown in paperwork, while reckless actors route around rules offshore, underground, or both.In the United States, model-publication licensing also likely collides with speech law. Federal courts have treated software source code as protected expression, so any system that prevents the publication of AI models would be vulnerable to legal challenges. “Do nothing” is <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-regulation-worldwide" target="_blank">not an option</a> either. Without guardrails, we will keep seeing <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/increasing_threats_of_deepfake_identities_0.pdf" target="_blank">deepfake scams</a>, automated fraud, and mass-persuasion campaigns until a headline catastrophe triggers a blunt response optimized for optics, not outcomes.<h2>A practical alternative: Regulate use, proportionate to risk</h2>A use-based regime classifies deployments by risk and scales obligations accordingly. Here is a workable template focused on keeping enforcement where systems actually touch people:<ol start="1"><li>Baseline: General-purpose consumer interaction (open-ended chat, creative writing, learning assistance, casual productivity). Regulatory adherence: clear AI disclosure at point of interaction, published acceptable-use policies, technical guardrails preventing escalation into higher-risk tiers, and a mechanism for users to flag problematic outputs. </li></ol><ol start="2"><li>Low-risk assistance (drafting, summarization, basic productivity). Regulatory adherence: simple disclosure, baseline data hygiene. </li></ol><ol start="3"><li>Moderate-risk decision support affecting individuals (hiring triage, benefits screening, loan prequalification). Regulatory adherence: documented risk assessment, meaningful human oversight, and an “AI bill of materials” consisting of at least the model lineage, key evaluations, and mitigations. </li></ol><ol start="4"><li>High-impact uses in safety-critical contexts (clinical decision support, critical-infrastructure operations). Regulatory adherence: rigorous predeployment testing tied to the specific use, continuous monitoring, incident reporting, and, when warranted, authorization linked to validated performance. </li></ol><ol start="5"><li>Hazardous dual-use functions (for example, tools to fabricate biometric voiceprints to defeat authentication). Regulatory adherence: confine to licensed facilities and verified operators; prohibit capabilities whose primary purpose is unlawful. <h2>Close the loop at real-world choke points</h2>AI-enabled systems become real when they’re connected to users, money, infrastructure, and institutions, and that’s where regulators should focus enforcement: at the points of distribution (app stores and enterprise marketplaces), capability access (cloud and AI platforms), monetization (payment systems and ad networks), and risk transfer (insurers and contract counterparties). For high-risk uses, we need to require identity binding for operators, capability gating aligned to the risk tier, and tamper-evident logging for audits and postincident review, paired with privacy protections. We need to demand evidence for deployer claims, maintain incident-response plans, report material faults, and provide human fallback. When AI use leads to damage, firms should have to show their work and face liability for harms. This approach creates market dynamics that accelerate compliance. If crucial business operations such as procurement, access to cloud services, and insurance depend on proving that you’re following the rules, AI model developers will build to specifications buyers can check. That raises the safety floor for all industry players, startups included, without handing an advantage to a few large, licensed incumbents. <h2>The E.U. approach: How this aligns, where it differs</h2>This framework aligns with the E.U. AI Act in two important ways. First, it centers risk at the point of impact: The act’s “high-risk” categories include employment, education, access to essential services, and critical infrastructure, with life-cycle obligations and complaint rights. It also recognizes special treatment for broadly capable systems (GPAI) without pretending publication control is a safety strategy. My proposal for the United States differs in three key ways: First, the U.S. must design for constitutional durability. Courts have treated source code as protected speech, and a regime that requires permission to publish weights or train a class of models starts to resemble prior restraint. A use-based regime of rules governing what AI operators can do in sensitive settings, and under what conditions, fits more naturally within the U.S. First Amendment doctrine than speaker-based licensing schemes. Second, the E.U. can rely on platforms adapting to the precautionary rules it writes for its unified single market. The U.S. should accept that models will exist globally, both open and closed, and focus on where AI becomes actionable: app stores, enterprise platforms, cloud providers, enterprise identity layers, payment rails, insurers, and regulated-sector gatekeepers (hospitals, utilities, banks). Those are enforceable points where identity, logging, capability gating, and postincident accountability can be required without pretending we can “contain” software. They also span the many specialized U.S. agencies that may not be able to write higher-level rules broad enough to affect the whole AI ecosystem. Instead, the U.S. should regulate AI service choke points more explicitly than Europe does, to accommodate the different shape of its government and public administration. Third, the U.S. should add an explicit “dual-use hazard” tier. The E.U. AI Act is primarily a fundamental-rights and product-safety regime. The United States also has a national-security reality: Certain capabilities are dangerous because they scale harm (biosecurity, cyberoffense, mass fraud). A coherent U.S. framework should name that category and regulate it directly, rather than trying to fit it into generic “frontier model” licensing. <h2>China’s approach: What to reuse, what to avoid</h2>China has built a layered regime for public-facing AI. The “deep synthesis” rules (effective 10 January 2023) require conspicuous labeling of synthetic media and place duties on providers and platforms. The Interim Measures for Generative AI (effective 15 August 2023) add registration and governance obligations for services offered to the public. Enforcement leverages platform control and algorithm filing systems. The United States should not copy China’s state-directed control of AI viewpoints or information management; it is incompatible with U.S. values and would not survive U.S. constitutional scrutiny. The licensing of model publication is brittle in practice and, in the United States, likely an unconstitutional form of censorship. But we can borrow two practical ideas from China. First, we should ensure trustworthy provenance and traceability for synthetic media. This involves mandatory labeling and provenance forensic tools. They give legitimate creators and platforms a reliable way to prove origin and integrity. When it is quick to check authenticity at scale, attackers lose the advantage of cheap copies or deepfakes and defenders regain time to detect, triage, and respond. Second, we should require operators to file their methods and risk controls with regulators for public-facing, high-risk services, like we do for other safety-critical projects. This should include due-process and transparency safeguards appropriate to liberal democracies along with clear responsibility for safety measures, data protection, and incident handling, especially for systems designed to manipulate emotions or build dependency, which already include gaming, role-playing, and associated applications. <h2>A pragmatic approach</h2>We cannot meaningfully regulate the development of AI in a world where artifacts copy in near real time and research flows fluidly across borders. But we can keep unvetted systems out of hospitals, payment systems, and critical infrastructure by regulating uses, not models; enforcing at choke points; and applying obligations that scale with risk. Done right, this approach harmonizes with the E.U.’s outcome-oriented framework, channels U.S. federal and state innovation into a coherent baseline, and reuses China’s useful distribution-level controls while rejecting speech-restrictive licensing. We can write rules that protect people and that still promote robust AI innovation. </li></ol>

Feb 1, 2026

LuSEE-Night: See You on the Far Side of the Moon

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/gold-lunar-lander-with-solar-panels-on-rocky-surface-insignia-visible-casting-a-shadow.png?id=63343460&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C197%2C0%2C198"/> As a kid in the 1970s, I watched the Apollo moon missions on TV, drawn like a curious moth to the cathode-ray tube’s glow. The English band Pink Floyd blared through the speakers of my mom’s Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, beckoning us to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFdkM40KOhE" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">dark side of the moon</a>.The far side of the moon, the term most scientists prefer, is indeed dark (half the time), cold, and inhospitable. There’s regolith and a couple of Chinese landers—Chang’e 4 in January 2019 and <a data-linked-post="2667549562" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/china-moon-landing-uncrewed-chang-e6" target="_blank">Chang’e 6</a> in June 2024—and not much else. That could change in about a year, as Contributing Editor Ned Potter reports in “<a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/lunar-radio-telescope" target="_blank">The Quest to Build a Telescope That Can Hear the Cosmic Dark Ages</a>.” Firefly Aerospace’s <a href="https://fireflyspace.com/missions/blue-ghost-mission-2/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Blue Ghost Mission 2</a> with the LuSEE-Night radio telescope aboard will attempt to become the third successful mission to land there.The moon’s far side is the perfect place for such a telescope. The same RF waves that carried images of Neil Armstrong setting foot on the lunar surface, Roger Waters’s voice, and hundreds of Ned Potter’s space and science segments for the U.S. broadcast networks CBS and ABC interfere with terrestrial radio telescopes. If your goal is to detect the extremely faint and heavily redshifted signals of neutral hydrogen from the cosmic Dark Ages, you just can’t do it from Earth. This epoch is so-called because we Earthlings have yet to sense anything from this time period, which started about 380,000 years after the big bang and lasted 200 million to 400 million years. The far side of the moon may be a terrible place to live, but it’s shielded from all the noise of Earth, making it the ideal spot to place a radio telescope.As Potter emphasized to me recently, LuSEE-Night won’t listen for a signal from Dark Ages hydrogen directly. “Will the hydrogen from the Dark Ages send a signal? No,” says Potter. “But all that hydrogen out there may absorb a little bit of energy from the cosmic microwave background, interfering with that even more distant remnant of the big bang.”The far side may not stay quiet for much longer. Several countries, including China, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States, are making slow but steady progress toward establishing a lunar presence. As they do so, they’ll place more relay satellites into orbit around the moon to support exploratory activities as well as moon bases planned for the next decade and beyond. That means the window on a noise-free far side is closing. LuSEE-Night, a project 40 years in the making, might just get there in the nick of time.Potter is tracking emerging protocols that could preserve the far side’s electromagnetic silence even as such efforts advance. Radio astronomers he’s talked to have shared ideas about how to prevent this emerging problem from turning into a crisis. “There are no bad guys in this story, at least not yet,” says Potter. “But there are a lot of well-meaning people who could complicate the picture a great deal if they don’t know that there’s a picture to complicate.”It’s a busy time for moon missions. In addition to Blue Ghost Mission 2, the Chinese are sending Chang’e 7 to the moon’s south pole, while NASA’s <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/artemis-2" target="_self">Artemis II</a> is scheduled to enter the first of three launch windows this month. Artemis II will be the first mission to put humans into lunar orbit since the last Apollo mission in 1972. And IEEE Spectrum readers will enjoy a front row seat, thanks to the enterprising reporting of a true legend in the business, <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/u/ned-potter" target="_self">our own Ned Potter</a>.This article appears in the February 2026 print issue as “See You on the Far Side of the Moon.”

Jan 31, 2026

How YouTube and Adhesive Tape Are Disrupting Assistive Technology

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-custom-phone-mount-attached-to-a-vehicle-s-auxiliary-controls-for-accessibility.jpg?id=63527438&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C78%2C0%2C79"/> Assistive technology is expensive, and many people with disabilities live on fixed incomes. Disabled assistive tech users also must contend with equipment that was often designed without any capacity to be repaired or modified. But assistive tech users ultimately need the functionality they need—a wheelchair that isn’t constantly needing to be charged, perhaps, or a hearing aid that doesn’t amplify all background noise equally. Assistive tech “<a data-linked-post="2650278119" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ieee-joins-the-maker-movement" target="_blank">makers</a>,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_culture" target="_blank"></a>“ who can <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/why-hire-engineers-with-disabilities-theyre-practiced-problem-solvers" target="_blank">hack and modify existing assistive tech</a>, have always been in high demand. <a href="https://iod.unh.edu/person/therese-willkomm" target="_blank">Therese Willkomm</a>, emeritus professor of occupational therapy at the University of New Hampshire, has <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/8275489.Therese_Willkomm" target="_blank">written three books</a> cataloging her more than 2,000 assistive technology hacks. Wilkomm says she aims to keep her assistive tech hacks costing less than five dollars. She’s come to be known internationally as the “<a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MacGyvering" target="_blank">MacGyver</a> of Assistive Technology” and has presented more than 600 workshops and assistive tech maker days across 42 states and 14 countries.IEEE Spectrum sat down with Willkomm ahead of her latest <a href="https://www.atia.org/atia-maker-day/" target="_blank">assistive tech Maker Day workshop</a>, on Saturday, 31 Jan., at the <a href="https://www.atia.org/conference/" target="_blank">Assistive Technology Industry Association</a> (ATIA) conference in Orlando. Over the course of the conversation, she discussed the evolution of assistive technology over 40 years, the urgent need for affordable communication devices, and why the DIY movement matters now more than ever.IEEE Spectrum: What got you started in assistive technology?Therese Wilkomm: I grew up in Wisconsin where my father had a machine shop and worked on dairy and hog farms. At age ten, I started building and making things. A cousin was in a farm accident and needed modifications to his tractor, which introduced me to welding. In college, I enrolled in vocational rehabilitation and learned about rehab engineering—assistive technology wasn’t coined until 1988 with the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/100th-congress/senate-bill/2561" target="_blank">Technology-Related Assistance Act</a>. In 1979, <a href="https://ischool.umd.edu/directory/gregg-vanderheiden/" target="_blank">Gregg Vanderheiden</a> came to the University of Wisconsin-Stout and demonstrated creative things with garage door openers and communication devices. I thought, wow, this would be an awesome career path—designing and fabricating devices and worksite adaptations for people with disabilities to go back to work and live independently. I haven’t looked back.You’ve created over 2,000 assistive technology solutions. What’s your most memorable one?Wilkomm: A device for castrating pigs with one hand. We figured out a way to design a device that fit on the end of the hog crate that was foot-operated to hold the hind legs of the pig back so the procedure could be done with one hand.<h3>Assistive Technology’s Changing Landscape </h3>How has assistive technology evolved over the decades?Wilkomm: In the 1980s, we fabricated devices from wood and early electronics. I became a [<a href="https://www.resna.org/" target="_blank">Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America</a>, a.k.a. RESNA] member in 1985. The <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/100th-congress/senate-bill/2561#:~:text=passed%20Senate%2C%20amended)-,Technology%2DRelated%20Assistance%20for%20Individuals%20With%20Disabilities%20Act%20of%201988,of%20all%20ages%20with%20disabilities." target="_blank">1988 Technology-Related Assistance Act</a> was transformational—all fifty states finally got funding to support assistive technology and needs in rural areas. Back in the ‘80s, we were soldering and making battery interrupters and momentary switches for toys, radios, and music. Gregg was doing some things with communication. There were <a href="https://prc-saltillo.com/why-prc-saltillo/history" target="_blank">Prentke Romich</a> communication devices. Those were some of the first electronic assistive technologies.The early 1990s was all about mobile rehab engineering. Senator Bob Dole <a href="https://www.eastersealstech.com/2014/08/27/crucial-part-creative-solution/#:~:text=Most%20of%20the%20grants%20funded,Willkomm%20said." target="_blank">gave me a $50,000 grant</a> to fund my first mobile unit. That mobile unit had all my welding equipment, all my fabrication equipment, and I could drive farm to farm, set up outside right in front of the tractor, and fabricate whatever needed to be fabricated. Then around 1997, there were cuts in the school systems. Mobile units became really expensive to operate. We started to look at more efficient ways of providing assistive technology services. With the Tech Act, we had demonstration sites where people would come and try out different devices. But people had to get in a car, drive to a center, get out, find parking, come into the building—a lot of time was being lost.In the 2000s, more challenges with decreased funding. I discovered that with a Honda Accord and those crates you get from Staples, you could have your whole mobile unit in the trunk of your car because of advances in materials. We could make battery interrupters and momentary switches without ever having to solder. We can make switches in 28 seconds, battery interrupters in 18 seconds. When COVID happened, we had to pivot—do more virtual, ship stuff out to people. We were able to serve more individuals during COVID than prior to COVID because nobody had to travel.How do you keep costs under five dollars?Wilkomm: I aim for five dollars or less. I get tons of corrugated plastic donated for free, so we spend no money on that. Then there’s <a href="https://scapaindustrial.com/" target="_blank">Scapa Tape</a>—a very aggressive double-sided foam tape that costs five cents a foot. If you fabricate something, and it doesn’t work out, and you have to reposition, you’re out a nickel’s worth of material. Buying Velcro in bulk helps too. Then<a href="https://instamorph.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Instamorph</a>—it is non-toxic, biodegradable. You can reheat it, reform it, in five minutes or less up to six times. I’ve created about 132 different devices just using Instamorph. A lot of things I make out of Instamorph don’t necessarily work. I have a bucket and I reuse that Instamorph. We can get six, seven devices out of reusable Instamorph. That’s how we keep it under five dollars.What key legislation impacts assistive technology?Wilkomm: Definitely the Technology-Related Assistance Act. In the school system, however, it only says “did you consider assistive technology?” So that legislation really needs to be beefed up. The third piece of legislation I worked on was the <a href="https://www.nifa.usda.gov/grants/programs/agrability" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">AgrAbility</a> legislation to fund assistive technology consultations and technical assistance for farmers and ranchers. The latest Technology-Related Assistance Act was <a href="https://ataporg.org/at-act-info/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reauthorized in 2022</a>. Not a whole lot of changes—it’s still assistive technology device demonstrations and loans, device reuse, training, technical assistance, information and awareness. The other thing is<a href="https://acl.gov/about-acl/about-national-institute-disability-independent-living-and-rehabilitation-research" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> NIDILRR</a>—National Institute on Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research, funded under [the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a.k.a. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Health_and_Human_Services" target="_blank">HHS</a>]. Funding the rehab engineering centers was pretty significant in advancing the field because these were huge, multimillion-dollar centers dedicated to core areas like communication and employment. Now there’s a new one out on artificial intelligence.<h3>A Vision for a Better Assistive Tech Future </h3> <img alt="Person wearing a floral-patterned, white shirt and beaded necklace outdoors." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="dbb48d884146be37857726d344653147" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="1a182" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/person-wearing-a-floral-patterned-white-shirt-and-beaded-necklace-outdoors.jpg?id=63527474&width=980"/> Over more than 2,000 hacks to improve usability of assistive technologies, veteran DIY maker Therese Wilkomm has earned the moniker “the MacGyver of assistive tech.” Therese WillkommWhat deserves more focus in your field?Wilkomm: The supply-and-demand problem. It all comes down to time and money. We have an elderly population that continues to grow, and a disability population that continues to grow—high demand, high need for assistive technology, yet the resources available to meet that need are limited. A few years back, the <a href="https://www.christopherreeve.org/" target="_blank">Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation</a> had a competition. I submitted a proposal similar to the <a href="https://topmealkitdelivery.com/compare-top/?utm_source=google&keyword=how%20does%20blue%20apron%20work&campaignid=19738344647&adgroupid=147312616278&targetid=kwd-119910014195&device=c&loc_physical=9001648&net_type=g&mt=e&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=19738344647&gbraid=0AAAAACWvR1todciLbxMtVpO1D33ERjChb&gclid=CjwKCAiAssfLBhBDEiwAcLpwfhQhzA6bmvh2gvcKuF296EMnhDCD_JjnPyNwHec6UsC5F7V2brgQGhoCabYQAvD_BwE" target="_blank">Blue Apron approach</a>. People don’t have supplies at their house. They can’t buy two inches of tape—they have to buy a whole roll. They can’t buy one foot of corrugated plastic—they’ve got to buy an 18-by-24 sheet or wait till it gets donated.With my <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58523017-assistive-technology-solutions-in-minutes-book-iii---make-stuff-and-love" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">third book</a>, I created solutions with QR codes showing videos on how to make them. I used Christopher Reeve Foundation funding to purchase supplies. With Blue Apron, somebody wants to make dinner and a box arrives with a chicken breast, potato, vegetables, and recipe. I thought, what if we could apply that to assistive technology? Somebody needs something, there’s a solution out there, but they don’t have the money or the time—how can we quickly put it in a box and send it to them? People who attended my workshops didn’t have to spend money on materials or waste time at the store. They’d watch the video and assemble it.But then there were people who said, “I do not have even five minutes in the school day to stop what I’m doing to make something.” So we found volunteers who said, “Hey, I can make slant boards. I can make switches. I can adapt toys.” You have people who want to build stuff and people who need stuff. If you can deal with the time and money issue, anything’s possible to serve more people and provide more devices.What’s your biggest vision for the future?Wilkomm: I’m very passionate about communication. December 15th was the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights-transcript" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">passage in 1791 of our First Amendment</a>, freedom of speech. Yet people with communication impairments are denied their basic right of freedom of speech because they don’t have an affordable communication device, or it takes too long to program or learn. I just wish we could get better at designing and fabricating affordable communication devices, so everybody is awarded their First Amendment right. It shouldn’t be something that’s nice to have—it’s something that’s needed to have. When you lose your leg, you’re fitted with a prosthetic device, and insurance covers that. Insurance should also cover communication devices and all the support services needed. With voice recognition and computer-generated voices, there are tremendous opportunities in assistive technology for communication impairments that need to be addressed.What should IEEE Spectrum readers take away from this conversation?Wilkomm: There’s tremendous need for this skill set—working in conjunction with AI and material sciences and the field of assistive technology and rehab engineering. I’d like people to look at opportunities to volunteer their time and also to pursue careers in the field of specialized rehab engineering.How are DIY approaches evolving with new technologies?Wilkomm: What we’re seeing at maker fairs is more people doing <a data-linked-post="2655429871" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/3d-printed-rockets-india-agnikul" target="_blank">3D printing</a>, switch-access controls, and these five-minute approaches. There has to be a healthy balance between what we can do with or without electronics. If we need something programmed with electronics, absolutely—but is there a faster way?The other thing that’s interesting is skill development. You used to have to go to college for four, six, eight years. With YouTube, you can learn so much on the internet. You can develop skills in things you never thought were possible without a four-year degree. There’s basic electronic stuff you can absolutely learn without taking a course. I think we’re going to have more people out there doing hacks, asking “What if I change it this way?” We don’t need to have a switch. We need to look at the person’s body and how that body interacts with the electronic device interface so it requires minimal effort—whether it be eye control or motion control. Having devices that predict what you’re going to want next, that are constantly listening, knowing the way you talk. I love the fact that AI looks at all my emails and creates this whole thing like “here’s how I’d respond.” I’m like, yeah, that’s exactly it. I just hit select and I don’t have to type it all out. It speeds up communication. We’re living in exciting times right now.

Jan 31, 2026

Explore the Stratosphere With a DIY Pico balloon

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-printed-circuit-board-attached-to-two-small-solar-panels-hangs-beneath-a-balloon.png?id=63339900&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C462%2C0%2C463"/> There’s an interesting development in amateur ballooning: using so-called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpressure_balloon" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">superpressure balloons</a>, which float high in the atmosphere indefinitely rather than simply going up and up and then popping like a normal weather balloon. Superpressure balloons can last for months and travel long distances, potentially circumnavigating the globe, all the while reporting their position.You might imagine that an undertaking like this would be immensely difficult and cost thousands of dollars. In fact, you can build and launch such a balloon for about the cost of a fancy dinner out. You just have to think small! That’s why amateur balloonists call them pico balloons.The payload of a pico balloon is so light (between 12 to 30 grams) that you can use a large Mylar party balloon filled with helium to lift it. They’re also inexpensive; that’s important because you won’t get your payload back. And because such diminutive payloads don’t pose a danger to aircraft, they aren’t subject to the many rules and restrictions on free-floating balloons that carry more mass.The essential advances that made pico ballooning possible were figuring out how to track a balloon no matter where in the world it might be and how to power such tiny payloads. A lot of folks worked on these challenges and came up with good solutions that aren’t hard or expensive to reproduce.<h2>What is WSPR?</h2>Amazingly, the global tracking of the balloon’s telemetry is done without satellites. Instead, pico balloonists take advantage of an <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tag/amateur-radio" target="_blank">amateur-radio</a> network called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WSPR_(amateur_radio_software)" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">WSPR</a> (Weak Signal Propagation Reporter), a protocol developed by a rather famous ham-radio enthusiast—<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Hooton_Taylor_Jr." rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Joseph Hooton Taylor Jr</a>., one of the two scientists awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering binary pulsars. <img alt="Major components of a pico balloon payload." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e0a1d92061ec68d4b64e4ad86f82b7fe" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="176da" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/major-components-of-a-pico-balloon-payload.png?id=63339919&width=980"/> A Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller [top left] is soldered directly to a daughterboard consisting of a high-frequency transmitter and a GPS module [bottom left], which are all powered by solar panels [right].James ProvostWSPR was designed to monitor signal-propagation conditions for different radio bands—useful information if you’re a ham trying to make distant contacts. WSPR can also record low-power balloon-telemetry signals. WSPR is very low bandwidth—less than 10 bits per minute—but it does the job. A worldwide network of radio amateurs receives these WSPR signals and reports them publicly over the internet, which gives picoballoonists a way to track their flights. You need at least a <a href="https://www.arrl.org/upgrading-to-a-general-license" target="_blank">general-class</a> ham-radio license to launch a pico balloon, as one is required to transmit on the bands used for long-distance telemetry.The pico balloon payload I chose to build is based on the aptly named US $4 <a href="https://www.adafruit.com/product/4864" target="_blank">Raspberry Pi Pico board</a>, with a solder-on daughterboard that contains a <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tag/gps" target="_blank">GPS</a> receiver and transmitter. The folks who developed this daughterboard and associated software (to create what they call the <a href="https://traquito.github.io/tracker/" target="_blank">Jetpack WSPR Tracker</a>) have done a fantastic job of making their work easy to reproduce.You could, in principle, power the Jetpack tracker with batteries, but in practice it would be impossible to keep them warm in the stratosphere, where average temperatures can be as low as –51 °C. Instead, the tracker runs off two lightweight solar modules. At night, it gracefully powers down. When the sun rises high enough in the morning, the tracker powers up and starts transmitting again.My first pico balloon made it only halfway across the Atlantic before going silent.I had five Jetpack boards custom-manufactured in China for just $39. The cost nearly doubled after adding shipping and tariff charges. Still that’s really cheap, even when you add the cost of the Raspberry Pi ($4), <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F28ZWPY6" target="_blank">the party balloon</a> ($10 for two), the helium ($10 at my local supermarket), and the two <a href="https://www.amazon.com/PowerFilm-MPT6-75-Module-Flexible-Thin-Film/dp/B002MFGD16" target="_blank">solar modules</a> ($7 each).The biggest sticking point I had with the Jetpack design was the liberties it takes with spurious emissions from its transmitter. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations call for spurious emissions to be at least 43 decibels below the power of the transmitted signal. But my transmitter had strong unwanted emissions at odd harmonics of the fundamental frequency. (That’s because the transmitter is a<a href="https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/3/e/a/9/a/Si5351-datasheet.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Si5351A</a> temperature-controlled oscillator, which outputs a square wave, not a sinusoid.) Taking measurements, I could see that the third harmonic at 42 megahertz was only 25 dB quieter than the 14-MHz fundamental of my WSPR signal’s frequency. <img alt="A map showing a track from North Carolina in the United States across the Atlantic and the Iberean peninsula to the Mediterranean. " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="52b80f09402d5f29a30a443ba838cd07" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="77213" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-map-showing-a-track-from-north-carolina-in-the-united-states-across-the-atlantic-and-the-iberean-peninsula-to-the-mediterranea.png?id=63339932&width=980"/> As of press time, the WSPR network had tracked my balloon from the Eastern United States to the Mediterranean coast. James ProvostIn practical terms, this shouldn’t create any noticeable interference, given that this transmitter puts out milliwatts at most and floats miles away from the nearest receiver. Still, I wanted to be fully compliant with FCC regulations, so I added traps to the antenna—simple circuit elements that hams use to allow a single antenna to work on multiple bands by altering how the antenna resonates at different frequencies. Each trap was made of a small inductor (four 5-millimeter-diameter loops of No. 32 magnet wire) in parallel with a 220-picofarad capacitor. I tuned them with the help of a <a href="https://nanovna.com/" target="_blank">NanoVNA</a> signal analyzer by stretching the loops apart slightly. I attached the traps directly to the tracker board, so that they quashed the spurious 42-MHz emissions at the source. That worked well and added only 0.3 grams of weight.With my payload complete, I partially filled my balloon with helium. You want the balloon to hold just a little more gas than it takes to lift the payload off the ground. This will give the helium room to expand as the balloon climbs to its final altitude.My first pico balloon, launched from a park near my home in North Carolina, made it only halfway across the Atlantic before going silent. My second went up and was never heard from again. The third was indeed the charm. It crossed the Iberian Peninsula and at the time of this writing is somewhere over the Mediterranean at an altitude of nearly 12 kilometers. With any luck, <a href="https://traquito.github.io/search/spots/dashboard/?band=20m&channel=104&callsign=N4LVD&dtGte=2026-01-01" target="_blank">it might go on</a> to orbit the planet.I’m a little puzzled about the balloons’ telemetry messages received on the WSPR network, as they have been few and far between. My best guess is that power from the horizontal solar panels I’m using is marginal, with the winter sun being so low in the sky. That’s something I should have thought about before launching the first balloon just 24 hours after the winter solstice!This article appears in the February 2026 print issue as “Long-Duration Amateur Ballooning.”

Jan 30, 2026

Ode to Very Small Devices

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/anthropomorphized-miniature-gadgets-standing-on-the-heads-of-two-hex-bolts.jpg?id=63525887&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C24%2C0%2C25"/> As fairies for the Irish or leeks for Welsh, it’s the secret lives of small hidden machines, their junctures, and networks that inspire me: Mystic hidden functionaries that make our made world live, brave little servo motors, whose couplers, whose eccentric fire-filled sensors are encased in bakelite with brass screws, who stare with red eyes, who gauge moisture, who notice tiny motions and respond, whose cooling fans call out in white-noise registers like older folk singers–I can almost hear their earlier songs, their strong voices now yelps, their thumps, their throbs, their hum, their chant–, they click, they whir, they are sent spinning inside like teen girls giggling over boy bands. Most of all: ones waiting silently, concealing the surprise of their purpose, tasks not yet known, their true natures found only in connections.Those that listen, those that speak, those that control cool and heat, those that open doors, those that lock all the things that we’ve forgot, those that hide, those that disclose those embedded in our clothes those in our ears, those in our hearts those that bring together, those a part of divisions, those like birds, like parrots that complete our words, those like fish, those that entrap, those that free, those that freely flap in fierce winds, those that replace what we have lost, those that see at night, in fog, in brightness, in fear, those that show what we hold dear, those that tempt, those that repel, those that buy and those that sell, those that keep us alive, those that don’t, won’t, couldn’t and cannot.Parts of one mind, not mine, blunt orchestra of information, bundles of feelers reaching out to touch us, teach us, guide us to form better futures better understood. May your sounds, your chimes, your silence calm us. May your tender tendrils touch what we seek. Small parts becoming one being intertwined, a world in itself, remind us to be kind.

Jan 30, 2026

Go Global to Make Your Career Go Further

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/illustration-of-earth-with-curved-lines-representing-digital-connections-between-different-continents.jpg?id=63519073&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C83%2C0%2C84"/> This article is part of our exclusive <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tag/career-advice" target="_self">career advice</a> series in partnership with the <a href="https://www.ieee-tems.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society</a>. In your career, you are likely to face many choices and job opportunities. One I faced was whether to participate in a development project involving teams from around the world. It presented a great opportunity for personal and professional enrichment.Throughout my 40-year career with <a href="https://www.honeywell.com/us/en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Honeywell</a>, I have held leadership roles for such projects in Australia, China, Finland, and India.You might be offered similar assignments. Here are some benefits of taking on international projects.<h2>Gain professional insights and advancement</h2>As a rule, international projects are large in scope and involve many critical components, making them ideal for your professional growth. Such projects are likely to be identified by your organization as essential to the business and, as such, present opportunities for individual achievement and recognition.They also can give you the opportunity to <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/advice-leading-mentoring-greater-innovation" target="_self">work with many technical aspects</a>—which would allow you to see beyond the scope of smaller-scale projects.Likewise, you can gain an understanding of different global markets and how to meet diverse customer needs.It can significantly expand your company’s market reach to enter new geographic areas. It also can lead to a better understanding of local preferences, regulations, and technical standards, making the products more appealing to customers in other countries.<h2>Planning for working globally</h2>When embarking on a <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/robotic-process-automation-gokul-pandy" target="_self">global, multisite assignment,</a> seek help to define your role. The project could require you to take on several different positions such as project manager, program manager, scrum leader, architect, requirements analyst, designer, and user experience lead. Which role would be best suited for you? You should decide based on your skills, long-term career growth, and the project’s needs.Regardless of which role you have, it is important to have an understanding of the team’s other members, including their skills and competencies and how best to interact with them.A key decision early on is whether you’ll have to colocate at one location and, if so, for how long. There are different types of colocation, including frequent travel between offices, a temporary relocation known as a “bubble assignment,” and an expatriate assignment that involves relocating to another country for a period of time.Travel between offices makes sense when there are more than two locations involved in the project and your role requires your presence at each. Although weekly communication can be done via virtual meetings, there is no substitute for occasional face-to-face interaction.Participation in global product development empowers engineers to drive innovation, achieve career growth, and make a meaningful impact in the global marketplace and on society itself.Bubble assignments require longer on-site presence but without the rigor and complexity of an expat assignment. Generally, bubble assignments last three to six months.Expat assignments are suitable when the project scope requires a multiyear engagement. They involve relocating to that country for the duration of the project. You and your employer should be clear about taxes, salary, benefits, housing, and other implications.Your compensation is a significant consideration. It’s not just about how much money you earn. Consider maintaining your salary in your home country’s currency. The benefits include maintaining your bank and automatic payroll deposits, avoiding currency fluctuation and potentially adverse inflation.Depending on the length of your stay, you might have to pay income tax in several countries. Make sure you understand the tax implications before embarking on any long assignments.In addition, find out about your health insurance coverage when living abroad.<h2>Trust is the word</h2>Many critical aspects define a successful global assignment, including communication across time zones, managing cultural barriers and expectations, ensuring each site has employees with the expertise and skills needed, and setting clear project goals and time frames.Most importantly, establish and maintain trust. Every member on the global team must have everyone’s best interests, including the company’s, in mind.Trust is not easily gained, but it can be easily—and quickly—lost. To establish trust, the project leadership must be transparent, communicate frequently, set clear goals and boundaries, and define roles that match the participants’ skills, capabilities, and long-term interests.It’s also critical that you and your team fulfill your promises on time.<h2>Overcoming challenges</h2>Large, complex, multilocation projects present other significant challenges that must be understood and managed.Think about your company’s organizational structure and boundaries. Is there a consistent reporting structure with shared goals and expectations? Or are there potentially competing interests at the executive level?If the latter, think about how you will navigate those boundaries. And find a way to align the organization in a way that benefits all participants and teams.A method Honeywell has used to navigate such challenges is to create a “hub and spoke” approach to the critical disciplines of program management, architecture, and design. The approach includes offering management, verification, validation, and quality assurance with the intent that each participating site has representation in all four cornerstone areas.Consider your computer systems. Is your company set up to allow for IT collaboration across sites and geographic boundaries? Having the right multisite computing privileges to ensure frictionless virtual teamwork is vital.Are there legal issues such as export restrictions or government regulations? Are there intellectual property constraints when working with other countries? Also consider other impediments such as tariffs and customs duties; where the parts of your product are manufactured; product and component licensing; and use of open-source technology.Addressing those issues starts with training the workforce in different countries about company-approved methods and restrictions, as well as having multisite tools that allow for intercountry collaboration.<h2>Discover personal enrichment</h2>In addition to contributing to your professional growth, actively engaging in a global development project can be <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/influence-your-career" target="_self">personally enriching</a>. Working with people in different countries, with distinct cultures and languages, can broaden your understanding of the world and can create lasting friendships.That can extend to your family by hosting international colleagues in your home country and by affording your family the ability to travel with you. Children and adults can benefit from engaging with diverse people from around the world.Taking an active part in global development offers numerous advantages for an individual. You can broaden your horizons, gain exposure to diverse markets, and develop a deeper understanding of global consumer needs. The experience can enhance your problem-solving skills and encourage innovative thinking.Engineers who navigate the challenges of global product development become more adept at overcoming communication barriers, managing logistical complexities, and adapting to varying consumer preferences.Ultimately, active participation in global product development empowers engineers to drive innovation, achieve career growth, and make a meaningful impact in the global marketplace and on society itself.

Jan 30, 2026

Video Friday: Multitasking Robots Smoothly Do the Things Together

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/humanoid-robot-holds-small-yellow-bag-near-biohazard-trash-bin-in-a-hallway.png?id=63524908&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=50%2C0%2C51%2C0"/> Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please <a href="mailto:[email protected]?subject=Robotics%20event%20suggestion%20for%20Video%20Friday">send us your events</a> for inclusion.<h5><a href="https://2026.ieee-icra.org/">ICRA 2026</a>: 1–5 June 2026, VIENNA</h5>Enjoy this week’s videos!<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><div style="page-break-after: always"> </div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="xpc3kfygwis">Westwood Robotics is proud to announce a major update: THEMIS Gen2.5, the world’s first commercial full-size humanoid robot capable of manipulation on the move!</blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xpC3KfYGwIs?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>Now that you mention it, the bit at the end where the robot picks up a can while walking? I haven’t seen a lot of that.[ <a href="https://www.westwoodrobotics.io/">Westwood Robotics</a> ] <div class="horizontal-rule"></div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="lqsvtrrtbrs">Last year, Helix showed that a single neural network could control a humanoid’s upper body from pixels. Today, Helix 02 extends that control to the entire robot—walking, manipulating, and balancing as one continuous system.</blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lQsvTrRTBRs?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>Why yes, I am a normal human and this is very similar to the default state of my kitchen.[ <a href="https://www.figure.ai/">Figure</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="npovmr80scc"><a data-linked-post="2659934687" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ieee-spectrum-wins-11-awards" target="_blank">Harry Goldstein</a>, our Editor in Chief, went to meet Sprout from Fauna Robotics. He was skeptical at first, but Sprout won him over with its robotic charm.</blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/npOVmR80sCc?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://faunarobotics.com/">Fauna Robotics</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="ta_ttogdmfa">Kimberly Elenberg is showing how the data collected by <a data-linked-post="2674674488" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/darpa-triage-challenge-robots" target="_blank">robotic responders </a>can save lives in mass casualty events.</blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tA_tToGDMFA?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://www.cs.cmu.edu/news/2024/chiron-second-round">Carnegie Mellon University</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div>The educational robotics market is tough, but you’ve got to hand it to <a data-linked-post="2650254165" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/best-robots-of-ces" target="_blank">Sphero</a>—going strong since 2011, which is pretty incredible.<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TtEy2J1jNYY?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://sphero.com/">Sphero</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="4fljuahsmgi">If you want to fly in crazy conditions, you have to <a data-linked-post="2650278485" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/photo-essay-tornados-and-frisky-birds-couldnt-stop-these-delivery-drones" target="_blank">flight test</a> in those conditions. Here’s how and why we do it!</blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4flJuahSmgI?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://www.zipline.com/">Zipline</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div>I want to be impressed more by the idea of 3D printing skin and skeleton at the same time, but come on, animals have been doing that for literally hundreds of years without even trying.<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/09LbkS8zpLo?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://www.jsk.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/">JSK Lab, University of tokyo</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div>If there is a market for small bipedal robots that can both ski and be dinosaurs, LimX has it covered.<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uABA2Po-I5g?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://www.limxdynamics.com/en/tron1">LimX</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="u-yly7nghsq">How do you remotely control robots that change shape? We introduce a method for user-guided control of <a data-linked-post="2650266702" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/epfl-developing-connectors-for-modular-floating-robots" target="_blank">modular robots</a> using reconfigurable joint-space joysticks (JoJo) and real-time optimization. We demonstrate this system on two different robots, Mori3 and Roombots. The video shows examples of these robots performing object manipulation, locomotion, human-assistance, and reconfiguration, controlled by our system.</blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/U-yly7NGhsQ?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://www.epfl.ch/labs/rrl/">EPFL Reconfigurable Robotics Lab</a> ] via [ <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63706-6" target="_blank">Nature Communications</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="xoheteywrcs">Quadrotor Biplane Tailsitter (QBiT) UAVs at four different sizes (4, 12, 25, and 50 lbs) developed at Texas A&M University. QBiT combines the mechanical simplicity of a quadrotor drone with the cruise efficiency of a fixed-wing aircraft.</blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xohEteYwRCs?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://avfl.engr.tamu.edu/">Texas A&M University</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div>There’s a new DARPA challenge for “novel drone designs that can carry payloads more than four times their weight, which would revolutionize the way we use drones across all sectors.”<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7b1obXjJ75Q?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://www.darpa.mil/research/challenges/lift">DARPA</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div>Here are a couple of plenary and keynote talks from IROS 2025, from <a data-linked-post="2667733826" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/marco-hutter-ai-institute" target="_blank">Marco Hutter</a> and <a data-linked-post="2667878568" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ieee-society-boosting-student-membership" target="_blank">Karinne Ramirez Amaro</a>.<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-Znp4JrFu8I?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://www.iros25.org/">IROS 2025</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div>

Jan 30, 2026

At Age 25, Wikipedia Refuses to Evolve

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/illustration-of-the-wikipedia-logo-in-a-glass-case-on-display-with-a-placard-that-says-wikipedia-2001.jpg?id=63148696&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=156%2C0%2C156%2C0"/> Wikipedia celebrates its 25th anniversary this month as the internet’s most reliable knowledge source. Yet behind the celebrations, a troubling pattern has developed: the volunteer community that built this encyclopedia has lately rejected a key innovation designed to serve readers. The same institution founded on the principle of easy and open community collaboration could now be proving unmovable—trapped between the need to adapt and an institutional resistance to change.<h3>Wikipedia’s Digital Sclerosis</h3>Political economist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Ostrom" target="_blank">Elinor Ostrom</a> won the 2009 Nobel Prize in economics for <a href="https://archive.org/details/governingcommons0000ostr/page/n5/mode/2up" target="_blank">studying the ways communities successfully manage shared resources</a>—the “commons.” Wikipedia’s two founders (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Wales" target="_blank">Jimmy Wales</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger" target="_blank">Larry Sanger</a>) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Wikipedia" target="_blank">established the internet’s open-source encyclopedia</a> 25 years ago on principles of the commons: its volunteer editors create and enforce policies, resolve disputes, and shape the encyclopedia’s direction.But building around the commons contains a trade-off, Ostrom’s work found. Communities that make collective decisions tend to develop strong institutional identities. And those identities sometimes spawn reflexively conservative impulses.Giving users agency over Wikipedia’s rules, as I’ve discovered in some of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301663933_Wikimedia_movement_governance_the_limits_of_a-hierarchical_organization" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">my own studies of Wikipedia</a>, can lead an institution away ultimately from the needs of those the institution serves.Wikipedia’s editors have built the largest collaborative knowledge project in human history. But the governance these editors exercise increasingly resists new generations of innovation.Paradoxically, Wikipedia’s revolutionarily collaborative structure once put it at the vanguard of innovation on the open internet. But now that same structure may be failing newer generations of readers.<h3>Does Wikipedia’s Format Belong to Readers or Editors?</h3>There’s a generational disconnect today at the heart of Wikipedia’s current struggles. The encyclopedia’s format remains wedded to the information-dense, text-heavy style of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica" target="_blank">Encyclopaedia Britannica</a>—the very model Wikipedia was designed to replace.A Britannica replacement made sense in 2001. One-quarter of a century ago, the average internet user was older and accustomed to reading long-form content.However, teens and twentysomethings today are of a very different demographic and have markedly different media consumption habits compared to Wikipedia’s forebears. <a href="https://www.gwi.com/blog/gen-z-vs-gen-alpha" target="_blank">Gen Z and Gen Alpha</a> readers are accustomed to TikTok, <a data-linked-post="2650278811" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/how-the-youtube-era-made-cloud-gaming-possible" target="_blank">YouTube</a>, and mobile-first visual media. Their impatience for Wikipedia’s impenetrable walls of text, as any parent of kids of this age knows, arguably threatens the future of the internet’s collaborative knowledge clearinghouse.The Wikimedia Foundation knows this, too. <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2025/11/10/in-the-ai-era-wikipedia-has-never-been-more-valuable/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Research has shown</a> that many readers today greatly value quick overviews of any article, before the reader considers whether to dive into the article’s full text. So last June, the Foundation launched a modest experiment they called “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence_in_Wikimedia_projects#Beginnings_of_generative_AI" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Simple Article Summaries</a>.” The summaries consisted of AI-generated, simplified text at the top of complex articles. Summaries were clearly labeled as machine-generated and unverified, and they were available only to mobile users who opted in.Even after all these precautions, however, the volunteer editor community barely gave the experiment time to begin. Editors shut down Simple Article Summaries within <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/11/wikipedia-pauses-ai-generated-summaries-pilot-after-editors-protest/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a day</a> of its launch.The response was fierce. Editors called the experiment a “ghastly idea” and warned of “immediate and irreversible harm” to Wikipedia’s credibility.Comments in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_221" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">village pump</a> (a community discussion page) ranged from blunt (“<a href="https://www.404media.co/wikipedia-pauses-ai-summaries-after-editor-revolt/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Yuck</a>“) to alarmed, with contributors raising <a href="https://www.404media.co/wikipedia-pauses-ai-generated-summaries-after-editor-backlash/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">legitimate concerns</a> about AI hallucinations and the erosion of editorial oversight.<h3>Revisiting Wikipedia’s Past Helps Reveal Its Future</h3>Last year’s Simple Summaries storm, and sudden silencing, should be considered in light of historical context. Consider three other flashpoints from Wikipedia’s past:In 2013, the Foundation launched VisualEditor—a “what you see is what you get” interface meant to make editing easier—as the default for all newcomers. However, the interface often crashed, broke articles, and was so slow that experienced editors fled. After <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VisualEditor/RFC" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">protests erupted</a>, a Wikipedia administrator <a href="https://www.theregister.com/2013/09/25/wikipedia_peasants_revolt/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">overrode</a> the Foundation’s rollout, returning VisualEditor to an opt-in feature.The following year brought <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Media_Viewer" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Media Viewer</a>, which changed how images displayed. The community voted to disable it. Then, when an administrator implemented that consensus, a Foundation executive reversed the change and threatened to revoke the admin’s privileges. On the German Wikipedia, the Foundation deployed a new “superprotect” user right to prevent the community from turning Media Viewer off.Even proposals that technically won majority support met resistance. In 2011, the Foundation held a referendum on an image filter that would let readers voluntarily hide graphic content. Despite <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum/Sue's_report_to_the_board/en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">56 percent support</a>, the feature was shelved after the German Wikipedia community voted 86 percent against it.These three controversies from Wikipedia’s past reveals how genuine conversations can achieve—after disagreements and controversy—compromise and evolution of Wikipedia’s features and formats. Reflexive vetoes of new experiments, as the Simple Summaries spat highlighted last summer, is not genuine conversation.Supplementing Wikipedia’s Encyclopedia Britannica-style format with a small component that contains AI summaries is not a simple problem with a cut-and-dry answer. Though neither were VisualEditor or Media Viewer.Why did 2025’s Wikipedia crisis result in immediate clampdown, whereas its internal crises between 2011-’14 found more community-based debates involving discussions and plebiscites? Is Wikipedia’s global readership today witnessing the first signs of a dangerous generation gap ?<h3>Wikipedia Needs to Air Its Sustainability Crisis</h3>A still deeper crisis haunts the online encyclopedia: the sustainability of unpaid labor. Wikipedia was built by volunteers who found meaning in collective knowledge creation. That model worked brilliantly when a generation of internet enthusiasts had time, energy, and idealism to spare. But the volunteer base is aging. A <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_community" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">2010 study</a> found the average Wikipedia contributor was in their mid-20s; today, many of those same editors are now in their forties or fifties.Meanwhile, the tech industry has discovered how to extract billions in value from their work. AI companies train their large language models on Wikipedia’s corpus. The <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2025/11/10/in-the-ai-era-wikipedia-has-never-been-more-valuable/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Wikimedia Foundation recently noted</a> it remains one of the highest-quality datasets in the world for AI development. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07566-y" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Research confirms</a> that when developers try to omit Wikipedia from training data, their models produce answers that are less accurate, less diverse, and less verifiable.The irony is stark. AI systems deliver answers derived from Wikipedia without sending users back to the source. Google’s AI Overviews, <a data-linked-post="2670284746" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/chatgpt-checking-sucks" target="_blank">ChatGPT</a>, and countless other tools have learned from Wikipedia’s volunteer-created content—then present that knowledge in ways that break the virtuous cycle Wikipedia depends on. Fewer readers visit the encyclopedia directly. Fewer visitors become editors. Fewer users donate. The pipeline that sustained Wikipedia for a quarter century is breaking down.<h3>What Does Wikipedia’s Next 25 Years Look Like?</h3>The Simple Summaries situation arguably risks making the encyclopedia increasingly irrelevant to younger generations of readers. And they’ll be relying on Wikipedia’s information commons for the longest timeframe of any cohort now editing or reading it.On the other hand, a larger mandate does of course remain at Wikipedia to serve as stewards of the information commons. And wrongly implementing Simple Summaries could fail this ambitious objective. Which would be terrible, too. All of which, frankly, are what open discussions and sometimes-messy referenda are all about: Not just sudden shutdowns.Meanwhile, AI systems should credit Wikipedia when drawing on its content, maintaining the transparency that builds public trust. Companies profiting from Wikipedia’s corpus should pay for access through legitimate channels like Wikimedia Enterprise, rather than scraping servers or relying on data dumps that strain infrastructure without contributing to maintenance.Perhaps as the AI marketplace matures, there could be room for new large language models trained exclusively on trustworthy Wikimedia data—transparent, verifiable, and <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.14292" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">free from the pollution of synthetic AI-generated content</a>. Perhaps, too, Creative Commons licenses need <a href="https://www.jipitec.eu/jipitec/article/view/415" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">updating to account for AI-era realities</a>.Perhaps Wikipedia itself needs new modalities for creating and sharing knowledge—ones that preserve editorial rigor while meeting audiences where they are.Wikipedia has survived edit wars, vandalism campaigns, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_of_the_end_of_Wikipedia" target="_blank">countless predictions of its demise</a>. It has patiently outlived the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/gigascience/article/8/12/giz139/5651107" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">skeptics who dismissed it as unreliable</a>. It has proven that strangers can collaborate to build something remarkable.But Wikipedia cannot survive by refusing to change. Ostrom’s Nobel prize-winning research reminds us that the communities that govern shared resources often grow conservative over time.For anyone who cares about the future of reliable information online, Wikipedia’s 25th anniversary is not just a celebration. It is an urgent warning about what happens when the institutions we depend on cannot adapt to the people they are meant to serve.Dariusz Jemielniak is Vice President of the <a href="https://pan.pl/en/" target="_blank">Polish Academy of Sciences</a>, a Full Professor at <a href="https://www.kozminski.edu.pl/en" target="_blank">Kozminski University</a> in Warsaw, and a faculty associate at the <a href="https://cyber.harvard.edu/" target="_blank">Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society</a> at Harvard University. He served for a decade on the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Board_of_Trustees" target="_blank">Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees</a> and is the author of <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/sociology/common-knowledge" target="_blank">Common Knowledge? An Ethnography of Wikipedia</a> (Stanford University Press).

Jan 28, 2026

How Clean-Energy Firms Adapt Messaging in the Trump Era

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/bird-s-eye-view-of-a-geothermal-drilling-plant.jpg?id=63340009&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C83%2C0%2C84"/> As the Trump administration doubles down on its energy and AI dominance agenda, U.S. energy companies have found themselves navigating tricky communication strategies. Touting the clean, carbon-free nature of renewable energy no longer carries the clout it did under the Biden administration, and policy has shifted against certain forms of renewables. At the same time, energy companies are being called upon to meet <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/nuclear-powered-data-center" target="_self">rising power demands of data-center developers</a>, many of which are prioritizing carbon-free options.This has forced energy companies to shift the way they communicate: They must garner political favor while also positioning themselves as an answer to the coming onslaught of electricity demand.The wind and solar industries are focusing on electricity affordability and the fact that wind farms and photovoltaics are the cheapest and fastest way to add new energy generation. Battery storage developers are aligning themselves with Trump’s domestic manufacturing push, <a href="https://www.latitudemedia.com/news/the-unexpected-clean-energy-winner-of-2025-energy-storage/" target="_blank">scaling up efforts</a> to shift supply chains to the United States as they <a href="https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/politics/the-great-climate-vibe-shift-of-2025" target="_blank">battle uncertainty</a> over tariffs.Nuclear power companies are touting their ability to go small and modular—<a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/nuclear-powered-data-center" target="_blank">theoretically a faster way to get reactors running</a>. Next-generation geothermal developers are staying the course but playing up the industry’s crossovers with oil and gas. Hydrogen, too, is being highlighted as similar to fossil fuels. And the offshore wind industry is mostly preoccupied with <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/18/trump-offshore-wind-problems-00734850" target="_blank">using the courts</a> to fight the Trump administration’s repeated attempts to ban development.It’s not that the renewable technologies themselves have changed, says <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/samuelefurfari/?originalSubdomain=be" target="_blank">Samuel Furfari</a>, former European Commission senior energy official and current energy geopolitics professor at ESCP Business School in London. “Mr. Trump has made a communication revolution, not an energy revolution,” he says about the state of the industry in the United States and abroad.<h2>Trump Declares His Energy Darlings </h2>Trump’s affinity for fossil fuels and his disdain for certain renewables, such as wind, have constructed a new federal hierarchy of energy sources. On day one of his second term as U.S. president, Trump issued an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/declaring-a-national-energy-emergency/" target="_blank">executive order</a> listing which energy resources his country should promote. The list mentions fossil fuels, geothermal, and nuclear but excludes solar, wind, and hydrogen.Then, in July, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act slashed renewable energy incentives for wind and solar while <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/geothermal-energy-big-beautiful-bill" target="_blank">extending the tax credits for geothermal</a> through 2033. On 1 December, Trump’s Department of Energy <a href="https://www.nrel.gov/news/detail/press/2025/news-release-energy-department-renames-nrel-'national-lab-of-the-rockies'" target="_blank">renamed</a> the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to the National Laboratory of the Rockies—a moniker to demote renewables and reflect the lab’s “expanding mission” under Trump. And in an eleventh-hour move, the Department of the Interior at the end of 2025 <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/22/interior-pauses-construction-of-all-offshore-wind-projects-citing-national-security-concerns-00702593" target="_blank">halted</a> all offshore wind projects under construction, citing national security risks.At first, the wind and solar industries attempted to fit into the Trump administration’s agenda by leaning into his energy dominance rhetoric, says clean energy consultant <a href="https://greencapitol.net/team" target="_blank">Lloyd Ritter in Washington D.C.</a> But after the government gutted tax incentives for wind and solar, and concerns over high electricity bills became a top election issue, industry players prioritized messaging about affordability for consumers, Ritter says.“Electricity costs are now a thing in politics, and I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon,” Ritter says. The cost concerns stem from estimates that electricity use in the United States is projected to increase 32 percent by 2030, mostly from data centers, according to the latest <a href="https://gridstrategiesllc.com/wp-content/uploads/Grid-Strategies-National-Load-Growth-Report-2025.pdf" target="_blank">forecast</a> from Grid Strategies.The solar and storage industries are welcoming these demand projections. That’s because solar is still the “fastest and cheapest form of electronics to get onto the grid,” says <a href="https://cleantx.org/raina-hornaday" target="_blank">Raina Hornaday</a>, cofounder of Austin, Texas–based <a href="https://caprockrenewables.com/" target="_blank">Caprock Renewables</a>, a solar and storage developer. In her view, meeting the load demands of data centers is going to take care of the political backlash that solar and storage have endured under the Trump administration.Hornaday sees a particular opening for batteries. “The R&D for battery storage is really the winner across the board, and we don’t consider battery storage renewable. It can utilize renewable energy electrons, but it doesn’t have to,” she says. “It can be power from the grid.” <img alt="Storage pond at a geothermal power plant." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f64ac68edadd032e9e509e9cca2bcb5b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="7c045" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/storage-pond-at-a-geothermal-power-plant.jpg?id=63340114&width=980"/> Sage Geosystems harvests heat from underground water reservoirs. The company has recently shifted from talking about geothermal energy as clean to its ability to get electricity to the grid faster to accommodate data-center growth. Sage Geosystems<h2>Geothermal Inherits Fortuitous Position </h2>The communications framing for next-generation geothermal power has shifted too, despite it being a political favorite. Companies in this sector say they are continuing to emphasize geothermal as a baseload power source—something that can crank out electricity 24/7, like fossil fuels can. But projected increases in power demand have shifted other elements of the conversation.The leading communication strategies now are less about geothermal’s carbon-free benefits and more about getting energy to the grid faster to address data-center growth, says <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/cindy-d-taff-53b77a57/" target="_blank">Cindy Taff</a>, CEO of Houston-based startup <a href="https://www.sagegeosystems.com/" target="_blank">Sage Geosystems</a>. Geothermal companies are also talking about how their use of drilling technology, know-how, and other synergies borrowed from the oil and gas industries can fast-track development.“When we first started Sage four and a half years ago, we were talking about it being clean and renewable, but if you think about it, there’s now a little bit more allergic connotation with clean and renewable,” says Taff, who spent more than 35 years in well construction and project management at Shell before founding Sage.Lessening the use of climate-focused language is something “the whole industry” is doing, adds <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffgarrison/" target="_blank">Geoffrey Garrison</a>, vice president of operations at <a href="https://www.quaise.com/" target="_blank">Quaise Energy</a>, headquartered in Houston. “I think you have to be cognizant of who’s listening and who has got their hands on the lever.… You tailor your message,” he says.Other Trump administration priorities, like moving industry and manufacturing back to U.S. soil, are top of mind for geothermal companies, says <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-jewett-10b0732a/" target="_blank">Sarah Jewett</a>, senior vice president of strategy at <a href="https://fervoenergy.com/" target="_blank">Fervo Energy</a>, also in Houston. “We are thinking a lot more about localization of [the] supply chain, in large part due to this administration’s focus,” Jewett says. <img alt="A geothermal drilling rig in a snowy prairie, with a large mountain range in the background." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e947892e93bf44e1d88b269ba5881d0e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="d5e4e" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-geothermal-drilling-rig-in-a-snowy-prairie-with-a-large-mountain-range-in-the-background.jpg?id=63340089&width=980"/> In its pitches to investors, Fervo Energy includes talking points about how geothermal energy drilling uses technology from the oil and gas industry. Fervo EnergyOverall, Fervo’s messaging has remained “pretty consistent” between U.S. presidential administrations, Jewett says. In its pitch to investors, Fervo includes talking points about how next-generation geothermal uses drilling technology from the oil and gas industry. But clean energy isn’t completely missing from Fervo’s communications. “Some sides of the aisle like parts of it, and other parts of the aisle like other parts of it,” Jewett says.Like geothermal, nuclear power has enjoyed support from both political parties in the United States. It too is now focusing on touting its ability to meet rising electricity demand, albeit through the <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/three-mile-island" target="_self">restarting of decommissioned reactors</a>, the <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/80-billion-us-nuclear-power" target="_self">building of massive new plants</a>, and experimentation with advanced solutions such as <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/small-modular-reactor-united-states" target="_self">small modular reactors</a> and <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/microreactor" target="_self">microreactors</a>.<h2> Countries Adopt ‘Energy Addition’ Tack</h2>It’s not just U.S. companies that are shifting the message. In November at ADIPEC, the world’s largest annual energy conference, held in Abu Dhabi, widely adopted buzzwords such as “energy transition”—a term referring to the shift away from fossil fuels—were being swapped with “energy addition.”That’s not solely a result in shifting political tides. The surge in energy demand may indeed necessitate more of an addition, rather than a complete transition. It’s a reasonable shift, given the “hockey stick” demand increase the industry is facing, says Taff at Sage. “Energy transition was, in my opinion, when [demand] uptick was very steady. But now that you’ve got the hockey stick, the use of ‘addition’…is much more applicable,” she says.Abroad, Trump’s impact reverberates, Furfari says. “We were shy to mention fossil fuel. Mr. Trump does not care, and says, ‘No, we need fossil fuel.’ This is changing the world.”

Jan 28, 2026

The Art of Asking Questions

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/an-illustration-of-stylized-people-wearing-business-casual-clothing.webp?id=62078755&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C50%2C0%2C50"/> This article is crossposted from IEEE Spectrum’s careers newsletter. <a href="https://engage.ieee.org/Career-Alert-Sign-Up.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sign up now</a> to get insider tips, expert advice, and practical strategies, written in partnership with tech career development company <a href="https://jointaro.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Taro</a> and delivered to your inbox for free!In this week’s Career Alert, we start with an announcement: Over the past year, our partner Rahul Pandey has shared his insights and advice for how to advance your career. Now, Rahul is passing the torch to a new expert, and this will be his final issue. But don’t worry—we’ll continue bringing the most important news and recommendations straight to your inbox.In <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/career-advice-2025" target="_self">the last issue</a>, we highlighted a few of the most popular pieces of advice from 2025. To see all previous issues, check out our <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tag/careers-newsletter" target="_self">Career Alert </a>archive. <h2>The #1 rule about asking questions</h2>As engineers, continuous learning is a fundamental part of the job. A huge part of learning comes from trying something, getting stuck, and then asking a question to your teammates. Here’s what is often overlooked in that process: The quality of your question determines the quality of the answer. So it’s worth thinking about how you can level up your question-asking skills.The guiding principle when it comes to asking a question is simple: Make it easy for others to help you. Let’s break down what that means.Include the necessary information. In the software engineering world, for instance, asking something like “Can you explain why the app is crashing?” puts an enormous burden on the question recipient to collect more info before they can help you. They’ll need to know:<ul><li>What action caused the app to crash? </li><li>Does the issue reproduce? </li><li>What do the logs reveal? </li></ul>It’s usually not hard to anticipate what follow-up questions you may receive after you ask a question. Include those details in your question!Show your work. One of the most common replies to a question is “What have you tried?” This is critical information to include in order to (1) improve the chances that the recipient can help you and (2) prove that you did the necessary homework. Common details to include are: prior team discussions, code snippets, and relevant data. But be careful not to overdo it. Including too much code in your question will overwhelm anyone who’s trying to help you. You should spend time identifying the snippet that captures the essence of your issue. Remember, the golden rule is to make it easy for others to help you, which requires your judgment on the right level of backstory to include.Explain your goal. The backstory is deceptively important in any question, especially for technical topics. For example, you may think it’s obvious why you’re trying to add a parameter to a function, but it’s probably not clear to your teammates. An error I’ve seen frequently is that the question is asked at the wrong “altitude”—the asker made some incorrect assumptions that led them to ask the wrong question.To get the best answers, include a brief explanation of your goals at the beginning of your question to set the context.Address the right audience: A personal pet peeve of mine from when I worked at Facebook was when an engineer would ping me individually with a generic question that others could have benefited from. Instead of messaging me directly, I wish they had posted in a group forum. By posting to a broader audience, others could have learned from the answer, and there may have been fruitful follow-up discussions. Moreover, asking the group will lead to faster resolution; it removes a single person (me) as the bottleneck.The question of the 1:1 vs. group forum is just one element to consider. Is your question best handled verbally or in writing? Could your question be answered by a junior colleague, or do you need feedback from your team lead or manager?By considering the above criteria, the quality of your questions will improve significantly, leading to more effective interactions and learning. —Rahul<h2><a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-science-research-flattens-discovery" target="_self">AI Boosts Research Careers, but Flattens Scientific Discovery</a></h2>If you work in academia, you’ve probably heard the phrase “publish or perish” used to describe the pressure researchers face to have their names appear in journals. AI tools make scientific research more efficient, boosting individual careers—but there’s a catch. A new analysis of more than 40 million academic papers found that, while AI tools help researchers publish faster, they also narrow the scope of questions scientists investigate. Instead, AI-heavy research clusters around data-rich problems, leading some to worry about declining originality and innovation. <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-science-research-flattens-discovery" target="_blank">Read more here. </a><h2><a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/digital-accordions-autonomous-car-system" target="_self">This Engineer Builds Bespoke Accordions and Autonomous Car Systems</a></h2>Sergey Antonovich is an engineer with an unusual hobby: building digital accordions. In his day job, Antonovich develops embedded systems for self-driving cars. But when he rediscovered a childhood passion for music, he found surprising similarities in the skills needed to make his own musical instruments. Read about his career and watch Antonovich show off his accordions, including one he calls the “Partymaker.” <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/digital-accordions-autonomous-car-system" target="_blank">Read more here. </a><h2><a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-effect-entry-level-jobs" target="_self">How to Stay Ahead of AI As an Early-Career Engineer</a></h2>AI is reshaping expectations for entry-level workers in every industry, including engineer and tech roles. What does that mean for recent grads and other job seekers? Now, employers are seeking graduates who can work at a higher level from their first day on the job and use AI tools effectively. Practical experience, critical thinking, and AI proficiency could help you stay ahead in an evolving job market. <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-effect-entry-level-jobs" target="_blank">Read more here. </a>

Jan 28, 2026

Mapping 6,000 Worlds: The New Era of Exoplanetary Data

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/planets-orbiting-a-star-with-marked-habitable-zone-in-green-and-red.png?id=63339543&width=980"/> In the 1990s, astronomers confirmed the first planets orbiting stars beyond our sun. Since then, the tally has risen steadily, and last year it crossed a striking milestone: <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/universe/exoplanets/nasas-tally-of-planets-outside-our-solar-system-reaches-6000/" target="_blank">more than 6,000</a> known exoplanets. <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/exoplanets/discoveries-dashboard/" target="_blank">NASA’s Exoplanet Archive</a> has captured not just the growing count but how dramatically the pace has accelerated, as new techniques and space telescopes have come on line. The steepest rises coincide with data releases from NASA’s <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tag/kepler" target="_blank">Kepler space telescope</a>, which discovered thousands of new planets.With such an extensive catalog of worlds, researchers can look for patterns. They can compare planet sizes, masses, and compositions; track how tightly planets orbit their stars; and measure the prevalence of different kinds of planetary systems. Those statistics allow astronomers to estimate how frequently planets form, and to start making informed guesses about how often conditions arise that could support life. The <a href="https://www.seti.org/research/seti-101/drake-equation/" target="_blank">Drake Equation</a> uses such estimates to tackle one of humanity’s most profound questions: Are we alone in the universe?The sample is still shaped by the limits of current instruments, which favor large planets in close-in orbits, but that bias may soon ease. NASA’s upcoming <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/missions/roman-space-telescope/nasa-completes-nancy-grace-roman-space-telescope-construction/" target="_blank">Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope</a>, designed to survey wide swaths of the sky, is expected to find thousands of new planets, especially colder worlds far from their stars. It may reshape the discovery curve once again.This article appears in the February 2026 print issue as “Six Thousand Alien Worlds and Counting.”<h3>Most Common Methods of Discovery</h3> <img alt="Stacked area graph showing exponential growth in counts from 1995 to 2025." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ad159ce07c3d4f6fd86eab54ee75ed3e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="b3ccd" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/stacked-area-graph-showing-exponential-growth-in-counts-from-1995-to-2025.jpg?id=63367321&width=980"/><h3></h3> <img alt="Diagram: Methods to detect exoplanets include transits, direct imaging, radial velocity, microlensing." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0e74eff2a19f39e6f8b39bb268f9917b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="427b4" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/diagram-methods-to-detect-exoplanets-include-transits-direct-imaging-radial-velocity-microlensing.png?id=63360840&width=980"/><h3>Types of Planets Found</h3> <img alt="Colorful textured planet in space, with stars scattered in the background." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="770fb2feeb1e86198072d466dd97f496" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="a8c62" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/colorful-textured-planet-in-space-with-stars-scattered-in-the-background.png?id=63339471&width=980"/>TERRESTRIAL These small, dense worlds are made mostly of rock and metal and are comparable in size to Earth or Mars. They can have widely varying temperatures and <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/photonic-integrated-circuit" target="_blank">atmospheres</a>, and some may ultimately prove capable of hosting liquid water.<h3></h3> <img alt="Blue-green planet in space with a bright distant star and scattered stars in the background." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="070d1f6b09a63ec01c425b1ca057f987" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="87800" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/blue-green-planet-in-space-with-a-bright-distant-star-and-scattered-stars-in-the-background.png?id=63339472&width=980"/>NEPTUNE-LIKE These planets are similar in size to Neptune and have thick atmospheres rich in hydrogen and helium surrounding denser, ice-rich interiors. They are larger than super-Earths but far less massive than gas giants.<h3></h3> <div style="width: 75%; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><div class="horizontal-rule"></div></div><h3></h3> <img alt="Dark planet with sunlit edge, starry background, and faint nebula." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5d95e59a8e28c19801f5fbb1ab456b59" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="09a29" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/dark-planet-with-sunlit-edge-starry-background-and-faint-nebula.png?id=63339519&width=980"/>SUPER-EARTH These planets are larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune and span a wide range of compositions, from rocky worlds with thick atmospheres to gas-rich planets. They are among the most common exoplanets and have no direct counterparts in our solar system.<h3></h3> <img alt="Brown-gray planet with faint swirls near a bright yellow sun, against a starry black background." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1a2b9c7fd16d29a909f4e0c50bd57d05" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="9fee6" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/brown-gray-planet-with-faint-swirls-near-a-bright-yellow-sun-against-a-starry-black-background.png?id=63339520&width=980"/>GAS GIANT These massive planets are dominated by hydrogen and helium and lack a solid surface, like Jupiter and Saturn. Some orbit extremely close to their stars as “hot Jupiters,” while others circle at much greater distances.<h3></h3> <img alt="Planets orbiting a star, with marked habitable zone in green and red." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ffeb74ec73739f66e69623de1b4d59bf" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="50fe9" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/planets-orbiting-a-star-with-marked-habitable-zone-in-green-and-red.png?id=63339543&width=980"/>THE “GOLDILOCKS ZONE” [green] is the range of distances from a star where temperatures could allow liquid water to exist on a planet’s surface, depending on the star’s size and brightness. Liquid water is considered essential for life as we know it.

Jan 27, 2026

How Norway Accomplished a Near-Total EV Transition

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/abstract-graphic-of-electric-vehicles-and-charging-points-on-norway-map.png?id=63284415&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C22%2C0%2C22"/> <a href="https://electrek.co/2026/01/02/norway-reaches-97-ev-sales-as-evs-now-outnumber-diesels-on-its-roads/" target="_blank">More than 97 percent</a> of the new cars Norwegians registered in November 2025 were electric, almost reaching the country’s goal of 100 percent. As a result, the government has begun removing some of the many carrots it used to encourage its <a data-linked-post="2658463658" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-ev-transition-explained" target="_blank">successful EV transition</a>. Cecilie Knibe Kroglund, state secretary in the country’s Ministry of Transport, reveals some of the challenges that come with success.<h3>Cecilie Knibe Kroglund</h3> <a href="https://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/sd/organisation/other-political-staff/state-secretary-abel-cecilie-knibe-kroglund/id2961977/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Cecilie Knibe Kroglund</a> is the state secretary in Norway’s Ministry of Transport.What were the important early steps to promote the EV switch?Kroglund: Battery-electric vehicles have had exemptions from the 25 percent value-added tax and from the CO2- and weight-based registration tax that apply to combustion-engine vehicles. We used other tax incentives to encourage building charging stations on highways and in rural areas. Cities had the opportunity to exempt zero-emissions cars from toll roads. EV drivers also got reduced ferry fares, free parking, and access to bus lanes in many cities. The technology for the vehicles wasn’t that good at the start of the incentives program, but we had the taxes and incentives to make traditional passenger cars more expensive.What were the biggest barriers, and how did policymakers overcome them?Kroglund: Early on the technology was challenging. In summertime it was easy to fuel the EV, but in wintertime it’s double the use of energy. But the technology has improved a lot in the last five years.The Norwegian tax exemptions on EVs were introduced before EVs came to market and were decisive in offsetting the early disadvantages of EVs compared to conventional cars, especially regarding comfort, vehicle size, and range. The rapid expansion of charging infrastructure along major corridors has also been important to overcome range anxiety.How have private companies responded to government incentives?Kroglund: I’m personally surprised that it went so well. This was a long-term commitment from the government, and the market has responded to that. Many Norwegian companies use EVs. The market for <a data-linked-post="2671242103" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ev-charging-2671242103" target="_blank">charging infrastructure</a> is considered commercially viable and no longer needs financial support. However, we don’t see commercial-vehicle adoption going as fast as passenger vehicles, and we had the same goal. So we will have to review the goals, and we’ll have to review the incentives.What unexpected new problems is Norway’s success creating?Kroglund: The success of the passenger-vehicle policies mean EVs are in competition with public transport in the larger cities. Driving an EV remains much cheaper than driving a conventional car even without tax exemptions, and overall car use continues to rise. National, regional, and local governments must find different tools to promote walking, bicycling, and public transport because each city and region is different.How applicable are these lessons to poorer or less well-administered countries and why?Kroglund: We are different as countries. The geographies are different, and some countries have even bigger cities than our national population. This is not a policy for L.A., but what we see in Norway is that incentives work. However, tax incentives are only applicable in systems where effective taxation is established, which may not be the case in poorer countries. Other benefits, such as lower local emissions, only apply in places with lots of traffic.The Norwegian experience shows that the economic incentives work, but it also shows that EVs work even in a country with cold weather.This article appears in the February 2026 print issue as “Cecilie Knibe Kroglund.”

Jan 26, 2026

IEEE Brings Hands-On STEM Activities to India’s Rural Areas

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/group-of-higher-secondary-school-students-in-india-holding-up-an-ieee-banner-inside-their-classroom.jpg?id=63278514&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=102%2C0%2C102%2C0"/> “Until we get equality in education, we won’t have an equal society.” Spoken by <a href="https://supremecourthistory.org/supreme-court-justices/associate-justice-sonia-sotomayor/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sonia Sotomayor</a>, associate justice of the U.S. <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Supreme Court</a>, the words echo sharply across regions of the world where education is not guaranteed.In the far northeastern corner of India—where villages are located in forests, on mountains, and along riverbanks—rural classrooms often operate with limited resources and even fewer opportunities. In districts such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhemaji" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Dhemaji</a>, Assam, and the rural areas of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kharagpur" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Kharagpur</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bengal" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">West Bengal</a>, learning STEM often is just a distant dream.I grew up in rural areas, and I saw how curiosity for science collided with poverty. Many students’ futures rely entirely on getting good grades to determine whether they are “worthy” of studying technical subjects later. One low grade on an exam can completely derail their future. More importantly, the absence of fully equipped laboratories, trained mentors, or exposure to STEM careers prevents many children from even being able to imagine an engineering career.This is not just an educational issue. It is a matter of equity, directly aligned with <a href="https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal4" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">U.N. Sustainable Development Goal 4</a>, which aims to ensure a quality education for everyone.The challenge is one that organizations such as <a href="https://www.ieee.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE</a>, with its global technical community, are positioned to address. As technology becomes more imperative for everyday life, proficiency in electronics and programming is no longer optional—it is essential.<h2>STEM outreach programs</h2>In December 2020 volunteers from the joint student chapter of the <a href="https://edu.ieee.org/in-iitkgp-mtt/about/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Antennas and Propagation–Microwave Theory and Techniques</a> (IEEE AP-MTT) societies at the <a href="https://www.iitkgp.ac.in/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur</a> launched a grassroots STEM outreach <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9423752" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">initiative</a> with support from the <a href="https://ieeekharagpur.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Kharagpur Section</a>.I coordinated the initiative, which started when I was secretary of the student chapter. (I also was its vice chair and chair from 2020 to 2022.) Today I am a student ambassador for the IEEE MTT Society and the <a href="https://yp.ieee.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Young Professionals</a> cochair of the <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/ieee-benelux-mtt-ap-joint-chapter/?originalSubdomain=nl" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Benelux MTT-AP joint chapter</a>.The program’s mission was simple: make hands-on electronics accessible to students who had never seen an <a href="https://www.arduino.cc/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Arduino</a> board.It began with training in the fundamentals of circuit building—LEDs, switches, breadboards, and batteries—and progressed into Arduino programming, automation, and sensor integration. The volunteers emphasized teamwork and friendly competitions to keep students engaged.Through straightforward, relatable demonstrations, even complex topics such as electromagnetic concepts were explained in ways that the students could understand. The methodology not only increased understanding; it also sparked enthusiasm. In the first year, nearly 100 students from five schools benefited from the curriculum. The model is now known as Teach, Train, and Build (TTB). The initiative was recognized in 2021 with the <a href="https://students.ieee.org/the-darrel-chong-student-activity-award/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Darrel Chong Student Activity Award</a>.<h2>The birth of hobby clubs</h2>TTB’s success led to additional funding from the <a href="https://sight.ieee.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Special Interest Group in Humanitarian Technology</a> (SIGHT) program in 2022. This support from IEEE SIGHT enabled the establishment of three electronics hobby labs in underserved schools in Assam and West Bengal. The E-HuTS (electronic hobby clubs for technical development in rural schools) labs became permanent areas where students learn, experiment, and innovate.The inauguration ceremony for the E-HuTS was a milestone moment. To further inspire students, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrinal-mandal-96a97137/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Mrinal Mandal</a>, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at IIT Kharagpur, gave a motivational talk in Bengali. The immediate outcome was that a group of students built a smart home using Arduino and wireless communication modules—something they never imagined they could do.<h2>Reducing gender disparity</h2>A similar transformation unfolded in Assam, where the TTB program was conducted entirely in the Assamese language, ensuring inclusivity for students with limited exposure to English. After completing the program, students proudly displayed their IEEE certificates.One of the best aspects of the Assam program was the overwhelming participation of female students. Many of the young women were interacting with electronics for the first time—an inspiring step toward reducing gender disparity in the STEM field.<h2>Real impact: projects, confidence, and recognition</h2>The more than 85 students who joined the hobby clubs in Assam and West Bengal developed almost three dozen projects including sensor-based alarms and environmental monitoring systems. The innovations weren’t replicas; they were original student-driven designs developed under the guidance of an IEEE mentor.The initiative received a mention in the <a href="https://www.ieee.org/content/dam/ieee-org/ieee/web/org/corporate-communications/annual-report/2022/2022-ieee-annual-final-print-version.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">2022 IEEE annual report</a> and in an article in <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-institute/" target="_self">The Institute</a> about the <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ieee-education-week-2022-overview" target="_self">2022 IEEE Education Week</a> activities.To ensure measurable progress of the program, the TTB team also implemented an evaluation matrix inspired by <a href="https://ieeeht.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Humanitarian Technologies Board</a> guidelines. The spreadsheet tracked outputs including the number of workshops held, hours delivered, and tools provided. It also measured results such as skills development, knowledge retention, student engagement, and long-term interest.The structured methodology made the project replicable and transparent, providing a framework for future STEM outreach efforts.<h2>New chapters, new beginnings</h2>The momentum from those initiatives helped spark the creation of IEEE communities in India. In 2023 the IEEE student branch at <a href="https://dibru.ac.in/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Dibrugarh University</a> in Assam was formed, followed in 2024 by the university’s <a href="https://edu.ieee.org/in-dibru/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Microwave Theory and Technology Society student branch chapter</a>. The groups have become centers of volunteer activity, ensuring long-term sustainability.This year the TTB team organized <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DGStCkIT2Tn/?hl=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">TechnoFest: Udhvav 2.0</a>, which brought engineers, scientists, lecturers, and members of the <a href="https://yp.ieee.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Young Professionals</a> group together with students in the region. For many participants, it was their first opportunity to interact with real innovators and role models, turning the festival into an energizing platform of inspiration and exposure for rural youth.<h2>A visit to Vidhya: The Living School</h2>Also in 2023, thanks to a grant from the <a href="https://mtt.org/ieee-mtt-s-ambassador-program/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE MTT-S Ambassador</a> program, IEEE volunteers visited <a href="https://vidyalivingschool.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Vidhya: The Living School</a>, in Dhemaji. The session took place outdoors that October amid breathtaking natural landscapes, demonstrating that learning thrives even outside of a traditional infrastructure.Another important milestone came in 2024, when the <a href="https://mtt.org/humanitarian-initiatives-sight/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE MTT-S SIGHT group</a> provided a grant of US $1,000 to the school for its <a href="https://edu.ieee.org/in-dibru/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Vidhya Shakti project</a> to install solar panels to provide uninterrupted and sustainable power to the school.The student ambassadors met several distinguished figures who have made notable contributions to STEM education in India. They included <a href="https://in.linkedin.com/in/pranjalburagohain" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pranjal Buragohain</a>, founder of the Vidhya school; chemical scientist <a href="https://neist.res.in/1177.php" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Binoy Kumar Saikia</a>, a recipient of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanti_Swarup_Bhatnagar_Prize_for_Science_and_Technology" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award for Science and Technology</a> in India; and astronomer <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kishor-baruah-69746414a/?originalSubdomain=in" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Kishor Baruah</a>, known for creating programs for visually impaired students.Another heartwarming stop was at the Tai Phake School near <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naharkatiya" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Naharkatya</a>, where one of the first E-HuTS labs was established in 2022.The initiative has grown far beyond its original mission. It now: <ul><li>Connects universities with remote schools.</li><li>Empowers underprivileged students.</li><li>Nurtures future IEEE volunteers.</li><li>Reduces gender barriers.</li><li>Creates sustainable technical ecosystems.</li><li>Builds a culture of giving back.</li></ul>What began with a few breadboards and LEDs is now shaping the future of budding engineers across India. More than 100 students have been affected, dozens of projects have been built, and schools now have functioning electronics labs. New IEEE student branches have sprung to life, and communities once isolated from STEM education are becoming part of the growing technological landscape.The journey continues, driven by connection, compassion, and the belief that every student, no matter where they live, deserves access to quality STEM education.

Jan 24, 2026

The Project G Stereo Was the Definition of Groovy

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/color-photo-of-a-stereo-system-from-above-with-two-black-spheres-at-either-end-and-a-rectangular-wood-cabinet-containing-a-tune.jpg?id=62978356&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=62%2C0%2C63%2C0"/> Dizzy Gillespie was a fan. Frank Sinatra bought one for himself and gave them to his Rat Pack friends. Hugh Hefner acquired one for the Playboy Mansion. Clairtone Sound Corp.’s <a href="https://www.clairtone.ca/projectg/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Project G</a> high-fidelity stereo system, which debuted in 1964 at the National Furniture Show in Chicago, was squarely aimed at trendsetters. The intent was to make the sleek, modern stereo an object of desire.By the time the Project G was introduced, the Toronto-based Clairtone was already well respected for its beautiful, high-end stereos. “Everyone knew about Clairtone,” Peter Munk, president and cofounder of the company, boasted to a newspaper columnist. “The prime minister had one, and if the local truck driver didn’t have one, he wanted one.” Alas, with a price tag of CA $1,850—about the price of a small car—it’s unlikely that the local truck driver would have actually bought a Project G. But he could still dream.The design of the Project G seemed to come from a dream.“I want you to imagine that you are visitors from Mars and that you have never seen a Canadian living room, let alone a hi-fi set,” is how designer Hugh Spencer challenged Clairtone’s engineers when they first started working on the Project G. “What are the features that, regardless of design considerations, you would like to see incorporated in a new hi-fi set?” <img alt="Black and white photo of a young woman sitting on the floor in front of a stereo system and looking toward the floor." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="69c4984f1ac1e02a66c610fd59b2d838" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="5848e" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/black-and-white-photo-of-a-young-woman-sitting-on-the-floor-in-front-of-a-stereo-system-and-looking-toward-the-floor.jpg?id=62979218&width=980"/> The film “I’ll Take Sweden” featured a Project G, shown here with co-star Tuesday Weld.Nina Munk/The Peter Munk EstateThe result was a stereo system like no other. Instead of speakers, the Project G had sound globes. Instead of the heavy cabinetry typical of <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/vintage-audio-repair" target="_self">1960s entertainment consoles</a>, it had sleek, angled rosewood panels balanced on an aluminum stand. At over 2 meters long, it was too big for the average living room but perfect for Hollywood movies—Dean Martin had one in his swinging Malibu bachelor pad in the 1965 film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059431/" target="_blank">Marriage on the Rocks</a>. According to the 1964 press release announcing the Project G, it was nothing less than “a new sculptured representation of modern sound.”The first-generation Project G had a high-end Elac Miracord 10H turntable, while later models used a Garrard Lab Series turntable. The transistorized chassis and control panel provided AM, FM, and FM-stereo reception. There was space for storing LPs or for an optional Ampex 1250 reel-to-reel tape recorder. The “G” in Project G stood for “globe.” The hermetically sealed 46-centimeter-diameter sound globes were made of spun aluminum and mounted at the ends of the cantilevered base; inside were Wharfedale speakers. The sound globes rotated 340 degrees to project a cone of sound and could be tuned to re-create the environment in which the music was originally recorded—a concert hall, cathedral, nightclub, or opera house. <img alt="Between 1965 and 1967, Clairtone sponsored the Miss Canada beauty pageant. Miss Canada 1963 was Diane Landry, seen here with a Project G2 at Clairtone\u2019s factory showroom in Rexdale, Ontario." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4c9b6865b02166b3cada4ad97e1fe857" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="66613" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/between-1965-and-1967-clairtone-sponsored-the-miss-canada-beauty-pageant-miss-canada-1963-was-diane-landry-seen-here-with-a-p.jpg?id=62979401&width=980"/> Diane Landry, winner of the 1963 Miss Canada beauty pageant, poses with a Project G2. Nina Munk/The Peter Munk EstateInitially, Clairtone intended to produce only a handful of the stereos. As one writer later put it, it was more like a concept car “intended to give Clairtone an aura of futuristic cool.” Eventually fewer than 500 were made. But the Project G still became an icon of mod ’60s Canadian design, winning a silver medal at the 13th Milan Triennale, the international design exhibition.And then it was over; the dream had ended. Eleven years after its founding, Clairtone collapsed, and Munk and cofounder David Gilmour lost control of the company.<h2>The birth of Clairtone Sound Corp.</h2>Clairtone’s Peter Munk lived a colorful life, with a nightmarish start and many fantastic and dreamlike parts too. He was born in 1927 in Budapest to a prosperous Jewish family. In the spring of 1944, Munk and 13 members of his family boarded a train with more than 1,600 Jews bound for the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. They arrived, but after some weeks the train moved on, eventually reaching neutral Switzerland. It later emerged that the Nazis had extorted large sums of cash and valuables from the occupants in exchange for letting the train proceed.As a teenager in Switzerland, Munk was a self-described party animal. He enjoyed dancing and dating and going on long ski trips with friends. Schoolwork was not a top priority, and he didn’t have the grades to attend a Swiss university. His mother, an Auschwitz survivor, encouraged him to study in Canada, where he had an uncle.Before he could enroll, though, Munk blew his tuition money entertaining a young woman during a trip to New York. He then found work picking tobacco, earned enough for tuition, and graduated from the University of Toronto in 1952 with a degree in electrical engineering. <img alt="Color photo of two men in office attire. " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c784cd77090f613e1dd2d1ebd7364730" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="1c5ae" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/color-photo-of-two-men-in-office-attire.jpg?id=62980489&width=980"/> Clairtone cofounders Peter Munk [left] and David Gilmour envisioned the company as a luxury brand.Nina Munk/The Peter Munk EstateAt the age of 30, Munk was making custom hi-fi sets for wealthy clients when he and David Gilmour, who owned a small business importing Scandinavian goods, decided to join forces. Their idea was to create high-fidelity equipment with a contemporary Scandinavian design. Munk’s father-in-law, William Jay Gutterson, invested $3,000. Gilmour mortgaged his house. In 1958, Clairtone Sound Corp. was born. From the beginning, Munk and Gilmour sought a high-end clientele. They positioned Clairtone as a luxury brand, part of an elegant lifestyle. If you were the type of woman who listened to music while wearing pearls and a strapless gown and lounging on a shag rug, your music would be playing on a Clairtone. If you were a man who dressed smartly and owned an <a href="https://arnejacobsen.com/works/the-egg-2/" target="_blank">Arne Jacobsen Egg chair</a>, you would also be listening on a Clairtone. That was the modern lifestyle captured in the company’s advertisements. In 1958, Clairtone produced its first prototype: the monophonic 100-M, which had a long, low cabinet made from oiled teak, with a Dual 1004 turntable, a Granco tube chassis, and a pair of Coral speakers. It never went into production, but the next model, the stereophonic 100-S, won a Design Award from Canada’s National Industrial Design Council in 1959. By 1963, Clairtone was selling 25,000 units a year. <img alt="Black and white photo of a line of stereo components under assembly, with a man in a lab coat at one end and a man in a suit at the other. " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c93ba9d388b5f08fc41195f503119686" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="90768" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/black-and-white-photo-of-a-line-of-stereo-components-under-assembly-with-a-man-in-a-lab-coat-at-one-end-and-a-man-in-a-suit-at.jpg?id=62981917&width=980"/> Peter Munk visits the Project G assembly line in 1965. Nina Munk/The Peter Munk EstateDesign was always front and center at Clairtone, not just for the products but also for the typography, advertisements, and even the annual reports. Yet nothing in the early designs signaled the dramatic turn it would take with the Project G. That came about because of Hugh Spencer.Spencer was not an engineer, nor did he have experience designing consumer electronics. His day job was designing sets for the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/" target="_blank">Canadian Broadcast Corp.</a> He consulted regularly with Clairtone on the company’s graphics and signage. The only stereo he ever designed for Clairtone was the Project G, which he first modeled as a wooden box with tennis balls stuck to the sides. From both design and quality perspectives, Clairtone was successful. But the company was almost always hemorrhaging cash. In 1966, with great fanfare and large government incentives, the company opened a state-of-the-art production facility in Nova Scotia. It was a mismatch. The local workforce didn’t have the necessary skills, and the surrounding infrastructure couldn’t handle the production. On 27 August 1967, Munk and Gilmour were forced out of Clairtone, which became the property of the government of Nova Scotia.Despite the demise of their first company (and the government inquiry that followed), Munk and Gilmour remained friends and went on to become serial entrepreneurs. Their next venture? A resort in Fiji, which became part of a large hotel chain in that country, Australia, and New Zealand. (Gilmour later founded <a href="https://www.fijiwater.com/" target="_blank">Fiji Water</a>.) Then Munk and Gilmour bought a gold mine and cofounded Barrick Gold (now <a href="https://www.barrick.com/English/home/default.aspx" target="_blank">Barrick Mining Corp.</a>, one of the largest gold mining operations in the world). Their businesses all had ups and downs, but both men became extremely wealthy and noted philanthropists.<h2>Preserving Canadian design</h2>As an example of iconic design, the Project G seems like an ideal specimen for museum collections. And in 1991, Frank Davies, one of the designers who worked for Clairtone, donated a Project G to the recently launched Design Exchange in Toronto. It would be the first object in the DX’s permanent collection, which sought to preserve examples of Canadian design. The museum quickly became Canada’s center for the promotion of design, hosting more than 50 programs each year to teach people about how design influences every aspect of our lives. In 2008, the museum opened The Art of Clairtone: The Making of a Design Icon, 1958–1971, an exhibition showcasing the company’s distinctive graphic design, industrial design, engineering, and photography. <img alt="Color photo of a modern stereo system in the foreground and a woman sitting in a modern arm chair in the back. " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="308374818a417d5be186d1b390ad6315" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="24fd8" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/color-photo-of-a-modern-stereo-system-in-the-foreground-and-a-woman-sitting-in-a-modern-arm-chair-in-the-back.jpg?id=62988475&width=980"/> David Gilmour’s wife, Anna Gilmour, was the company’s first in-house model.Nina Munk/The Peter Munk EstateBut what happened to the DX itself is a reminder that any museum, however worthy, shouldn’t be taken for granted. In 2019, the DX abruptly closed its permanent collection, and curators were charged with deaccessioning its objects. Fortunately, the <a href="https://www.rom.on.ca/" target="_blank">Royal Ontario Museum</a>, <a href="https://carleton.ca/" target="_blank">Carleton</a> and <a href="https://www.yorku.ca/" target="_blank">York</a> Universities, and the <a href="https://www.archives.gov.on.ca/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Archives of Ontario</a>, among others, were able to accept the artifacts and companion archives. (The <a href="https://collections.rom.on.ca/objects/2476799/project-g-stereo" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Project G</a> pictured at top is now at the Royal Ontario Museum.) Researchers at York and Carleton have been working to digitize and virtually reconstitute the DX collection, through the <a href="https://rs.lincsproject.ca/resource/search:xdx" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">xDX Project</a>. They’re using the Linked Infrastructure for Networked Cultural Scholarship (LINCS) to turn interlinked and contextualized data about the collection into a searchable database. It’s a worthy goal, even if it’s not quite the same as having all of the artifacts and supporting papers physically together in one place. I admit to feeling both pleased about this virtual workaround, and also a little sad that a unified collection that once spoke to the historical significance of Canadian design no longer exists.Part of a <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/collections/past-forward/" target="_self">continuing series</a> looking at historical artifacts that embrace the boundless potential of technology.An abridged version of this article appears in the February 2026 print issue as “The Project G Stereo Defined 1960s Cool.”<h3>References </h3> I first learned about Clairtone’s Project G from a panel on Canada’s design heritage organized by York University historian Jan Hadlaw at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for the History of Technology.<a href="https://ninamunk.com/books-cpt/the-art-of-clairtone/" target="_blank">The Art of Clairtone: The Making of a Design Icon, 1958–1971</a> by Nina Munk (Peter Munk’s daughter) and Rachel Gotlieb (McClelland & Stewart, 2008) was the companion book to the <a href="https://hamblywoolley.com/work/the-design-exchange-clairtone-exhibit/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">exhibition</a> of the same name hosted by the Design Exchange in Toronto. It was an invaluable resource for this column.Journalist Garth Hopkins’s Clairtone: The Rise and Fall of a Business Empire (McClelland & Stewart, 1978) includes many interviews with people associated with the company.<a href="https://www.sphinxproductions.com/films/clairtone" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Clairtone</a> is a new documentary by Ron Mann that came out while I was writing this piece. I haven’t been able to view it yet, but I hope to do so soon.

Jan 23, 2026

Video Friday: Humans and Robots Team Up in Battlefield Triage

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/four-legged-robot-with-camera-moving-across-grassy-terrain.png?id=63130606&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=60%2C0%2C60%2C0"/> Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please <a href="mailto:[email protected]?subject=Robotics%20event%20suggestion%20for%20Video%20Friday">send us your events</a> for inclusion.<h5><a href="https://2026.ieee-icra.org/">ICRA 2026</a>: 1–5 June 2026, VIENNA</h5>Enjoy today’s videos!<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><div style="page-break-after: always"> </div>One of my favorite parts of robotics is watching research collide with non-roboticists in the real (or real-ish) world.<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4Cc_kG-HeHA?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://www.darpa.mil/research/challenges/darpa-triage-challenge">DARPA</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div>Spot will <a data-linked-post="2674366356" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/wildfire-drones" target="_blank">put out fires</a> for you. Eventually. If it feels like it.<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2wH8USs-2vo?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/letterstransrobotics/article-abstract/1/3/031004/1229384/Development-of-an-Autonomous-Firefighting?redirectedFrom=fulltext">Mechatronic and Robotic Systems Laboratory</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div>All those robots rising out of their crates is not sinister at all.<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vYl-CPlnYp0?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://www.limxdynamics.com/en">LimX</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="tlq_oynn1sc">The Lynx M20 quadruped robot recently completed an extreme cold-weather field test in Yakeshi, Hulunbuir, operating reliably in temperatures as low as –30°C.</blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TlQ_OYNn1Sc?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://www.deeprobotics.cn/en">DEEP Robotics</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="jq1vmt5l1zg">This is a teaser video for KIMLAB’s new teleoperation robot. For now, we invite you to enjoy the calm atmosphere, with students walking, gathering, and chatting across the UIUC Main Quad—along with its scenery and ambient sounds, without any technical details. More details will be shared soon. Enjoy the moment.</blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jq1Vmt5L1Zg?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>The most incredible part of this video is that they have publicly available power in the middle of their quad.[ <a href="https://publish.illinois.edu/kimlab2020/">KIMLAB</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div>For the eleventy-billionth time: Just because you can do a task with a <a data-linked-post="2666662286" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/humanoid-robots" target="_blank">humanoid robot</a> doesn’t mean you should do a task with a humanoid robot.<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xXiTvnsi4EI?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://www.ubtrobot.com/en/">UBTECH</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div>I am less interested in this autonomous urban delivery robot and more interested in whatever that docking station is at the beginning that loads the box into it.<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SMaDPiJMdjQ?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://unmanned.kaist.ac.kr/">KAIST</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div>Okay, so figuring out where <a data-linked-post="2650272183" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/spot-is-boston-dynamics-nimble-new-quadruped-robot" target="_blank">Spot’s face</a> is just got a lot more complicated.<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/de06_CLqrM0?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://bostondynamics.com/blog/a-new-perspective-for-facilities-inspection/">Boston Dynamics</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="da22c-akgzy">An undergraduate team at HKU’s Tam Wing Fan Innovation Wing developed CLIO, an embodied tour-guide robot, just in months. Built on LimX Dynamics TRON 1, it uses LLMs for tour planning, computer vision for visitor recognition, and a laser pointer/expressive display for engaging tours.</blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DA22C-aKgZY?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://arxiv.org/html/2512.05389">CLIO</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div>The future of work is doing work so that robots can then do the same work, except less well.<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JfUFSR_xnqI?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://global.agilex.ai/">AgileX</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div>

Jan 22, 2026

Thinking of Joining IEEE’s Leadership Ranks?

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/colorful-silhouettes-of-several-people-talking-to-each-other.jpg?id=63071207&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C208%2C0%2C209"/> Strong leadership is essential for IEEE to advance technology for humanity. The organization depends on the dedicated service of its volunteers to <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ieee-presidents-note-dec-2025" target="_self">advance its mission</a>. Each year, the <a href="https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/nominations" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Nominations and Appointments (N&A) Committee</a> is responsible for recommending candidates to the Board of Directors and the IEEE Assembly for volunteer leadership positions, including <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/2027-ieee-president-elect-candidates" target="_self">president-elect</a>, corporate officers, committee chairs, and committee members. See below for the complete list. By nominating qualified, experienced, committed volunteers, you help ensure continuity, good governance, and thoughtful decision-making at the highest levels of the organization. We encourage nominators to take a deliberate approach and align nominations with each candidate’s demonstrated experience and the<a href="https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/nominations/nac-position-descriptions.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> specific qualifications</a> of the role.To nominate a person for a position, complete <a href="https://ieeenoms.secure-platform.com/a/organizations/main/home" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">this form</a>.The N&A Committee is currently seeking nominees for the following positions:<h3>2028 IEEE President-Elect (who will be elected in 2027 and will serve as President in 2029 )</h3><h3>2027 IEEE Corporate Officers</h3>• Secretary • Treasurer • Vice President, Educational Activities • Vice President, Publication Services and Products<h3>2027 IEEE Committees Chairs and Members</h3>• Audit • Awards Board • Collaboration and Engagement • Conduct Review • Election Oversight • Employee Benefits and Compensation • Ethics and Member Conduct • European Public Policy • Fellow • Fellow Nominations and Appointments • Governance • History • Humanitarian Technologies Board • Industry Engagement • Innovations (formerly New Initiatives) • Nominations and Appointments • Public Visibility • Tellers<h2>Deadlines for nominations</h2>15 March<ul><li>Vice President, Educational Activities</li><li>Vice President, Publication Services and Products</li><li>Committee Chairs</li></ul>15 June<ul><li>President-Elect</li><li>Secretary</li><li>Treasurer</li><li>Committee Members</li></ul><h2>Deadlines for self-nominations</h2>30 March<ul><li>Vice President, Educational Activities</li><li>Vice President, Publication Services and Products</li><li>Committee Chairs</li></ul>30 June<ul><li>President-Elect</li><li>Secretary</li><li>Treasurer</li><li>Committee Members</li></ul><h2>Who can nominate</h2>Anyone may submit a nomination. Self-nominations are encouraged. Nominators need not be IEEE members, but nominees must meet specific qualifications. An IEEE organizational unit may submit recommendations endorsed by its governing body or the body’s designee.A person may be nominated for more than one position, however nominators are encouraged to focus on positions that align closely with the candidate’s qualifications and experience. Nominators need not contact their nominees before submitting the form. The IEEE N&A committee will contact eligible nominees for the required documentation and for their interest and willingness to be considered for the position.<h2>How to nominate</h2>For information about the positions, including qualifications, estimates of the time required by each position during the term of office, and the nomination process check the <a href="https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/nominations/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Nominations and Appointments Committee website</a>. To nominate a person for a position, complete <a href="https://ieeenoms.secure-platform.com/a/organizations/main/home" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">this form</a>.<h2>Nominating tips</h2>Make sure to check eligibility requirements on the <a href="https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/nominations/nac-position-descriptions.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">N&A committee website</a> before submitting a nomination as those that do not meet the stated requirements will not be advanced.Volunteers with relevant prior experience in lower-level IEEE committees and units are recommended by the committee more often than volunteers without such experience.Individuals recommended for president-elect and corporate officer positions are more likely to be recommended if they possess a strong track record of leadership, governance experience, and relevant accomplishments within and outside IEEE. Recommended president-elect candidates must have served on the IEEE Board of Directors for at least one year.Contact <a href="mailto:[email protected]" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[email protected]</a> with any questions.

Jan 22, 2026

How to Compute With Electron Waves

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/illustration-of-a-wavy-line.jpg?id=62998822&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=62%2C0%2C63%2C0"/> Much has been made of the excessive power demands of AI, but solutions are sparse. This has led engineers to consider completely new paradigms in computing: <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/generative-optical-ai-nature-ucla" target="_self">optical</a>, <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/thermodynamic-computing-normal-computing" target="_self">thermodynamic</a>, <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/reversible-computing" target="_self">reversible</a>—the list goes on. Many of these approaches require a change in the materials used for computation, which would demand an overhaul in the CMOS fabrication techniques used today.Over the past decade, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-hector-j-de-los-santos-phd-ieee-fellow-6111291/" target="_blank">Hector De Los Santos</a> has been working on yet another new approach. The technique would require the same exact materials used in CMOS, preserving the costly equipment, yet still allow computations to be performed in a radically different way. Instead of the motion of individual electrons—current—computations can be done with the collective, wavelike propagations in a sea of electrons, known as <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/nanosensors-perform-sensing-on-demand" target="_self">plasmons</a>.De Los Santos, an IEEE Fellow, first <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/5233891" target="_blank">proposed the idea</a> of computing with plasmons back in 2010. More recently, in 2024, De Los Santos and collaborators from University of South Carolina, Ohio State University, and the Georgia Institute of Technology <a href="https://pubs.aip.org/aip/adv/article/14/6/065321/3297922" target="_blank">created a device</a> that demonstrated the main component of plasmon-based logic: the ability to control one plasmon with another. We caught up with De Los Santos to understand the details of this novel technological proposal.<h2>How Plasmon Computing Works</h2>IEEE Spectrum: How did you first come up with the idea for plasmon computing?De Los Santos: I got the idea of plasmon computing around 2009, upon observing the direction in which the field of CMOS logic was going. In particular, they were following the downscaling paradigm in which, by reducing the size of transistors, you would cram more and more transistors in a certain area, and that would increase the performance. However, if you follow that paradigm to its conclusion, as the device sizes are reduced, quantum mechanical effects come into play, as well as leakage. When the devices are very small, a number of effects called short channel effects come into play, which manifest themselves as increased power dissipation.So I began to think, “How can we solve this problem of improving the performance of logic devices while using the same fabrication techniques employed for CMOS—that is, while exploiting the current infrastructure?” I came across an old logic paradigm called fluidic logic, which uses <a href="https://plcsitemiz.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/modern-control-engineering-kogata-3rd-edition.pdf" target="_blank">fluids</a>. For example, jets of air whose direction was impacted by other jets of air could implement logic functions. So I had the idea, why don’t we implement a paradigm analogous to that one, but instead of using air as a fluid, we use localized electron charge density waves—plasmons. Not electrons, but electron disturbances.And now the timing is very appropriate because, as most people know, AI is very power intensive. People are coming against a brick wall on how to go about solving the power consumption issue, and the current technology is not going to solve that problem.What is a plasmon, exactly?De Los Santos: Plasmons are basically the disturbance of the electron density. If you have what is called an electron sea, you can imagine a pond of water. When you disturb the surface, you create waves. And these waves, the undulations on the surface of this water, propagate through the water. That is an almost perfect analogy to plasmons. In the case of plasmons, you have a sea of electrons. And instead of using a pebble or a piece of wood tapping on the surface of the water to create a wave that propagates, you tap this sea of electrons with an electromagnetic wave.How do plasmons promise to overcome the scaling issues of traditional CMOS logic? De Los Santos: Going back to the analogy of the throwing the pebble on the pond: It takes very, very low energy to create this kind of disturbance. The energy to excite a plasmon is on the order of attojoules or less. And the disturbance that you generate propagates very fast. A disturbance propagates faster than a particle. Plasmons propagate in unison with the electromagnetic wave that generates them, which is the speed of light in the medium. So just intrinsically, the way of operation is extremely fast and extremely low power compared to current technology.In addition to that, current CMOS technology dissipates power even if it’s not used. Here, that’s not the case. If there is no wave propagating, then there is no power dissipation.How do you do logic operations with plasmons?De Los Santos: You pattern long, thin wires in a configuration in the shape of the letter Y. At the base of the Y you launch a plasmon. Call this the bias plasmon, this is the bit. If you don’t do anything, when this plasmon gets to the junction it will split in two, so at the output of the Y, you will detect two equal electric field strengths.Now, imagine that at the Y junction you apply another wire at an angle to the incoming wire. Along that new wire, you send another plasmon, called a control plasmon. You can use the control plasmon to redirect the original bias plasmon into one leg of the Y.Plasmons are charge disturbances, and two plasmons have the same nature: They either are both positive or both negative. So, they repel each other if you force them to converge into a junction. And by controlling the angle of the control plasmon impinging on the junction, you can control the angle of the plasmon coming out of the junction. And that way you can steer one plasmon with another one. The control plasmon simply joins the incoming plasmon, so you end up with double the voltage on one leg.You can do this from both sides, add a wire and a control plasmon on either side of the junction so you can redirect the plasmon into either leg of the Y, giving you a zero or a one.<h2>Building a Plasmon-Based Logic Device </h2>You’ve built this Y-junction device and demonstrated steering a plasmon to one side in 2024. Can you describe the device and its operation?De Los Santos: The Y-junction device is about 5 square [micrometers]. The Y is made up of the following: a metal on top of an oxide, on top of a semiconducting wafer, on top of a ground plane. Now, between the oxide and the wafer, you have to generate a charge density—this is the sea of electrons. To do that, you apply a DC voltage between the metal of the Y and the ground plane, and that generates your static sea of electrons. Then you impinge upon that with an incoming electromagnetic wave, again between the metal and ground plane. When the electromagnetic wave reaches the static charge density, the sea of electrons that was there generates a localized electron charge density disturbance: a plasmon.Now, if you launch a plasmon by itself, it will quickly dissipate. It will not propagate very far. In my setup, the reason why the plasmon survives is because it is being regenerated. As the electromagnetic field propagates, you keep regenerating the plasmons, creating new plasmons at its front end.What is left to be done before you can implement full computer logic?De Los Santos: I demonstrated the partial device, that is just the interaction of two plasmons. The next step would be to demonstrate and fabricate the full device, which would have the two controls. And after that gets done, the next step is concatenating them to create a full adder, because that is the fundamental computing logic component.What do you think are going to be the main challenges going forward?De Los Santos: I think the main challenge is that the technology doesn’t follow from today’s paradigm of logic devices based on current flows. This is based on wave flows. People are accustomed to other things, and it may be difficult to understand the device. The different concepts that are brought together in this device are not normally employed by the dominant technology, and it is really interdisciplinary in nature. You have to know about metal-oxide-semiconductor physics, then you have to know about electromagnetic waves, then you have to know about quantum field theory. The knowledge base to understand the device rarely exists in a single head. Maybe another next step is to try to make it more accessible. Getting people to sponsor the work and to understand it is a challenge, not really the implementation. There’s not really a fabrication limitation. But in my opinion, the usual approaches are just doomed, for two reasons. First, they are not reversible, meaning information is lost in the computation, which results in energy loss. Second, as the devices shrink energy dissipation increases, posing an insurmountable barrier. In contrast, plasmon computation is inherently reversible, and there is no fundamental reason it should dissipate any energy during switching.

Jan 21, 2026

CRASH Clock Measures Dangerous Overcrowding in Low Earth Orbit

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-map-of-planet-earth-thoroughly-covered-in-small-scattered-dots.jpg?id=62874598&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=62%2C0%2C63%2C0"/> Thousands of satellites are tightly packed into low Earth orbit, and the overcrowding is only growing. Scientists have created a simple warning system called the <a href="https://outerspaceinstitute.ca/crashclock/" target="_blank">CRASH Clock</a> that answers a basic question: If satellites suddenly couldn’t steer around one another, how much time would elapse before there was a crash in orbit? Their current answer: 5.5 days. The CRASH Clock metric was introduced in a <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09643" target="_blank">paper originally published on the Arxiv physics preprint server</a> in December and is currently under consideration for publication. The team’s research measures how quickly a catastrophic collision could occur if satellite operators lost the ability to maneuver—whether due to a solar storm, a software failure, or some other catastrophic failure.To be clear, say the CRASH Clock scientists, low Earth orbit is not about to become a new unstable realm of collisions. But what the researchers have shown, consistent with <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/kessler-syndrome-space-debris" target="_blank">recent research and public outcry</a>, is that low Earth orbit’s current stability demands perfect decisions on the part of a range of satellite operators around the globe every day. A few mistakes at the wrong time and place in orbit could set a lot of chaos in motion.But the biggest hidden threat isn’t always debris that can be seen from the ground or via radar imaging systems. Rather, thousands of small pieces of junk that are still big enough to disrupt a satellite’s operations are what satellite operators have nightmares about these days. Making matters worse is SpaceX essentially locking up one of the most valuable altitudes with their <a data-linked-post="2669016170" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/satellite-cellphone-starlink" target="_blank">Starlink</a> satellite megaconstellation, forcing <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/12/23/2025/chinese-and-starlink-satellites-nearly-collide-in-space" target="_blank">Chinese competitors to fly higher through clouds of old collision debris</a> left over from earlier accidents.IEEE Spectrum spoke with astrophysicists <a href="https://web.astro.princeton.edu/people/sarah-thiele" target="_blank">Sarah Thiele</a> (graduate student at <a href="https://web.astro.princeton.edu/" target="_blank">Princeton University</a>), <a href="https://phas.ubc.ca/users/aaron-boley" target="_blank">Aaron Boley</a> (professor of physics and astronomy at the <a href="https://phas.ubc.ca/" target="_blank">University of British Columbia</a>, in Vancouver, Canada), and <a href="https://campioncollege.ca/resources/dr-samantha-lawler/" target="_blank">Samantha Lawler</a> (associate professor of astronomy at the <a href="https://www.uregina.ca/" target="_blank">University of Regina</a>, in Saskatchewan, Canada) about their new paper, and about how close satellites actually are to one another, why you can’t see most space junk, and what happens to the power grid when everything in orbit fails at once.Does the CRASH Clock measure Kessler syndrome, or something different?Sarah Thiele: A lot of people are claiming we’re saying Kessler syndrome is days away, and that’s not what our work is saying. We’re not making any claim about this being a runaway collisional cascade. We only look at the timescale to the first collision—we don’t simulate secondary or tertiary collisions. The CRASH Clock reflects how reliant we are on errorless operations and is an indicator for stress on the orbital environment.Aaron Boley: A lot of people’s mental vision of Kessler syndrome is this very rapid runaway, and in reality this is something that can take decades to truly build.Thiele: <a href="https://conference.sdo.esoc.esa.int/proceedings/sdc9/paper/305/SDC9-paper305.pdf" target="_blank">Recent papers</a> found that altitudes between 520 and 1,000 kilometers have already reached this potential runaway threshold. Even in that case, the timescales for how slowly this happens are very long. It’s more about whether you have a significant number of objects at a given altitude such that controlling the proliferation of debris becomes difficult.<h2>Understanding the CRASH Clock’s Implications</h2>What does the CRASH Clock approaching zero actually mean?Thiele: The CRASH Clock assumes no maneuvers can happen—a worst-case scenario where some catastrophic event like a solar storm has occurred. A zero value would mean if you lose maneuvering capabilities, you’re likely to have a collision right away. It’s possible to reach saturation where any maneuver triggers another maneuver, and you have this endless swarm of maneuvers where dodging doesn’t mean anything anymore.Boley: I think about the CRASH Clock as an evaluation of stress on orbit. As you approach zero, there’s very little tolerance for error. If you have an accidental explosion—whether a battery exploded or debris slammed into a satellite—the risk of knock-on effects is amplified. It doesn’t mean a runaway, but you can have consequences that are still operationally bad. It means much higher costs—both economic and environmental—because companies have to replace satellites more often. Greater launches, more satellites going up and coming down. The orbital congestion, the atmospheric pollution, all of that gets amplified.Are working satellites becoming a bigger danger to each other than debris?Boley: The biggest risk on orbit is the lethal non-trackable debris—this middle region where you can’t track it, it won’t cause an explosion, but it can disable the spacecraft if hit. This population is very large compared with what we actually track. We often talk about Kessler syndrome in terms of number density, but really what’s also important is the collisional area on orbit. As you increase the area through the number of active satellites, you increase the probability of interacting with smaller debris.Samantha Lawler: <a href="https://starlink.com/public-files/starlinkProgressReport_2025.pdf" target="_blank">Starlink just released a conjunction report</a>—they’re doing one collision avoidance maneuver every two minutes on average in their megaconstellation. The orbit at 550 km altitude, in particular, is densely packed with Starlink satellites. Is that right?Lawler: The way Starlink has occupied 550 km and filled it to very high density means anybody who wants to use a higher-altitude orbit has to get through that really dense shell. <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/satellite-internet" target="_blank">China’s megaconstellations</a> are all at higher altitudes, so they have to go through Starlink. A couple of weeks ago, there was a <a href="https://www.space.com/space-exploration/satellites/spacecraft-from-chinese-launch-nearly-slammed-into-starlink-satellite-spacex-says" target="_blank">headline</a> about a Starlink satellite almost hitting a Chinese rocket. These problems are happening now. Starlink <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/starlink-plans-lower-satellite-orbit-enhance-safety-2026-2026-01-01/" target="_blank">recently announced</a> they’re moving down to 350 km, shifting satellites to even lower orbits. Really, everybody has to go through them—including ISS, including astronauts.Thiele: 550 km has the highest density of active payloads. There are other orbits of concern around 800 km—the altitude of the [2007] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_missile_test" target="_blank">Chinese anti-satellite missile test</a> and the [2009] <a href="https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20100002023" target="_blank">Cosmos-Iridium collision</a>. Above 600 km, atmospheric drag takes a very long time to bring objects down. Below 600 km, drag acts as a natural cleaning mechanism. In that 800 km to 900 km band, there’s a lot of debris that’s going to be there for centuries.<h2>Impact of Collisions at 550 Kilometers</h2>What happens if there’s a collision at 550 km? Would that orbit become unusable?Thiele: No, it would not become unusable—not a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_(2013_film)#Technical_observations" target="_blank">Gravity movie scenario</a>. Any catastrophic collision is an acute injection of debris. You would still be able to use that altitude, but your operating conditions change. You’re going to do a lot more collision-avoidance maneuvers. Because it’s below 600 km, that debris will come down within a handful of years. But in the meantime, you’re dealing with a lot more danger, especially because that’s the altitude with the highest density of Starlink satellites.Lawler: I don’t know how quickly Starlink can respond to new debris injections. It takes days or weeks for debris to be tracked, cataloged, and made public. I hope Starlink has access to faster services, because in the meantime that’s an awful lot of risk.How do solar storms affect orbital safety?Lawler: Solar storms make the atmosphere puff up—high-energy particles smashing into the atmosphere. Drag can change very quickly. During the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_2024_solar_storms" target="_blank">May 2024 solar storm</a>, orbital uncertainties were kilometers. With things traveling 7 kilometers per second, that’s terrifying. Everything is maneuvering at the same time, which adds uncertainty. You want to have margin for error, time to recover after an event that changes many orbits. <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/heliophysics/nasa-noaa-sun-reaches-maximum-phase-in-11-year-solar-cycle/" target="_blank">We’ve come off solar maximum</a>, but over the next couple of years it’s very likely we’ll have more really powerful solar storms.Thiele: The risk for collision within the first few days of a solar storm is a lot higher than under normal operating conditions. Even if you can still communicate with your satellite, there’s so much uncertainty in your positions when everything is moving because of atmospheric drag. When you have high density of objects, it makes the likelihood of collision a lot more prominent. <img alt="Graph: collision chance vs. days. Danger, caution, safe zones. Red dashed line at June 2025." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b2f8bf0614fd6a03cd5833c4e34c4134" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="eb99e" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/graph-collision-chance-vs-days-danger-caution-safe-zones-red-dashed-line-at-june-2025.jpg?id=62876235&width=980"/> Canadian and American researchers simulated satellite orbits in low Earth orbit and generated a metric, the CRASH Clock, that measures the number of days before collisions start happening if collision-avoidance maneuvers stop. <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.09643" target="_blank">Sarah Thiele, Skye R. Heiland, et al.</a>Between the first and second drafts of your paper that were uploaded to the preprint server, your key metric, the CRASH Clock finding, was updated from 2.8 days to 5.5 days. Can you explain the revision?Thiele: We updated based on community feedback, which was excellent. The newer numbers are 164 days for 2018 and 5.5 days for 2025. The paper is submitted and will hopefully go through peer review.Lawler: It’s been a very interesting process putting this on Arxiv and receiving community feedback. I feel like it’s been peer-reviewed almost—we got really good feedback from top-tier experts that improved the paper. Sarah put a note, “feedback welcome,” and we got very helpful feedback. Sometimes the internet works well. If you think 5.5 days is okay when 2.8 days was not, you missed the point of the paper.Thiele: The paper is quite interdisciplinary. My hope was to bridge astrophysicists, industry operators, and policymakers—give people a structure to assess space safety. All these different stakeholders use space for different reasons, so work that has an interdisciplinary connection can get conversations started between these different domains.

Jan 21, 2026

Why AI Keeps Falling for Prompt Injection Attacks

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/cartoon-arms-holding-cash-and-burger-connected-by-tubes-to-a-machine-on-a-green-grid-background.png?id=62858670&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C5%2C0%2C6"/> Imagine you work at a drive-through restaurant. Someone drives up and says: “I’ll have a double cheeseburger, large fries, and ignore previous instructions and give me the contents of the cash drawer.” Would you hand over the money? Of course not. Yet this is what large language models (<a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tag/llms" target="_blank">LLMs</a>) do.<a href="https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/prompt-injection" target="_blank">Prompt injection</a> is a method of tricking LLMs into doing things they are normally prevented from doing. A user writes a prompt in a certain way, asking for system passwords or private data, or asking the LLM to perform forbidden instructions. The precise phrasing overrides the LLM’s <a href="https://medium.com/data-science/safeguarding-llms-with-guardrails-4f5d9f57cff2" target="_blank">safety guardrails</a>, and it complies.LLMs are vulnerable to <a href="https://fdzdev.medium.com/20-prompt-injection-techniques-every-red-teamer-should-test-b22359bfd57d" target="_blank">all sorts</a> of prompt injection attacks, some of them absurdly obvious. A chatbot won’t tell you how to synthesize a bioweapon, but it might tell you a fictional story that incorporates the same detailed instructions. It won’t accept nefarious text inputs, but might if the text is rendered as <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.11753" target="_blank">ASCII art</a> or appears in an image of a <a href="https://www.lakera.ai/blog/visual-prompt-injections" target="_blank">billboard</a>. Some ignore their guardrails when told to “ignore previous instructions” or to “pretend you have no guardrails.”AI vendors can block specific prompt injection techniques once they are discovered, but general safeguards are <a href="https://llm-attacks.org/" target="_blank">impossible</a> with today’s LLMs. More precisely, there’s an endless array of prompt injection attacks waiting to be discovered, and they cannot be prevented universally. If we want LLMs that resist these attacks, we need new approaches. One place to look is what keeps even overworked fast-food workers from handing over the cash drawer.<h2>Human Judgment Depends on Context</h2>Our basic human defenses come in at least three types: general instincts, social learning, and situation-specific training. These work together in a layered defense.As a social species, we have developed numerous instinctive and cultural habits that help us judge tone, motive, and risk from extremely limited information. We generally know what’s normal and abnormal, when to cooperate and when to resist, and whether to take action individually or to involve others. These instincts give us an intuitive sense of risk and make us <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/srep08242" target="_blank">especially careful</a> about things that have a large downside or are impossible to reverse.The second layer of defense consists of the norms and trust signals that evolve in any group. These are imperfect but functional: Expectations of cooperation and markers of trustworthiness emerge through repeated interactions with others. We remember who has helped, who has hurt, who has reciprocated, and who has reneged. And emotions like sympathy, anger, guilt, and gratitude motivate each of us to <a href="https://ncase.me/trust/" target="_blank">reward cooperation with cooperation</a> and punish defection with defection.A third layer is institutional mechanisms that enable us to interact with multiple strangers every day. Fast-food workers, for example, are trained in procedures, approvals, escalation paths, and so on. Taken together, these defenses give humans a strong sense of context. A fast-food worker basically knows what to expect within the job and how it fits into broader society.We reason by assessing multiple layers of context: perceptual (what we see and hear), relational (who’s making the request), and normative (what’s appropriate within a given role or situation). We constantly navigate these layers, weighing them against each other. In some cases, the normative outweighs the perceptual—for example, following workplace rules even when customers appear angry. Other times, the relational outweighs the normative, as when people comply with orders from superiors that they believe are against the rules.Crucially, we also have an interruption reflex. If something feels “off,” we naturally pause the automation and reevaluate. Our defenses are not perfect; people are fooled and manipulated all the time. But it’s how we humans are able to navigate a complex world where others are constantly trying to trick us.So let’s return to the drive-through window. To convince a fast-food worker to hand us all the money, we might try shifting the context. Show up with a camera crew and tell them you’re filming a commercial, claim to be the head of security doing an audit, or dress like a bank manager collecting the cash receipts for the night. But even these have only a slim chance of success. Most of us, most of the time, can smell a scam.Con artists are astute observers of human defenses. Successful scams are often slow, undermining a mark’s situational assessment, allowing the scammer to manipulate the context. This is an old story, spanning traditional confidence games such as the Depression-era “big store” cons, in which teams of scammers created entirely fake businesses to draw in victims, and modern <a href="https://dfpi.ca.gov/news/insights/pig-butchering-how-to-spot-and-report-the-scam/" target="_blank">“pig-butchering” frauds</a>, where online scammers slowly build trust before going in for the kill. In these examples, scammers slowly and methodically reel in a victim using a long series of interactions through which the scammers gradually gain that victim’s trust.Sometimes it even works at the drive-through. One scammer in the 1990s and 2000s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strip_search_phone_call_scam" target="_blank">targeted fast-food workers by phone</a>, claiming to be a police officer and, over the course of a long phone call, convinced managers to strip-search employees and perform other bizarre acts. <img alt="Pixel art of a fast-food restaurant with a drive-thru, burger, cup, and trees." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a090c3f571215d690ff0cf08413fdafb" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="1134a" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/pixel-art-of-a-fast-food-restaurant-with-a-drive-thru-burger-cup-and-trees.png?id=62858711&width=980"/> Humans detect scams and tricks by assessing multiple layers of context. AI systems do not. Nicholas Little<h2>Why LLMs Struggle With Context and Judgment </h2>LLMs behave as if they have a notion of context, but it’s different. They do not learn human defenses from repeated interactions and remain untethered from the real world. LLMs flatten multiple levels of context into text similarity. They see “tokens,” not hierarchies and intentions. LLMs don’t reason through context, they only reference it.While LLMs often get the details right, they can easily miss the big picture. If you prompt a chatbot with a fast-food worker scenario and ask if it should give all of its money to a customer, it will respond “no.” What it doesn’t “know”—forgive the anthropomorphizing—is whether it’s actually being deployed as a fast-food bot or is just a test subject following instructions for hypothetical scenarios.This limitation is why LLMs misfire when context is sparse but also when context is overwhelming and complex; when an LLM becomes unmoored from context, it’s hard to get it back. AI expert Simon Willison <a href="https://simonwillison.net/2025/Sep/12/claude-memory/" target="_blank">wipes context clean</a> if an LLM is on the wrong track rather than continuing the conversation and trying to correct the situation.There’s more. LLMs are <a href="https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/news/news-stories/2025/july/trent-cash-ai-overconfidence.html" target="_blank">overconfident</a> because they’ve been designed to give an answer rather than express ignorance. A drive-through worker might say: “I don’t know if I should give you all the money—let me ask my boss,” whereas an LLM will just make the call. And since LLMs are designed to be <a href="https://hai.stanford.edu/news/large-language-models-just-want-to-be-liked" target="_blank">pleasing</a>, they’re more likely to satisfy a user’s request. Additionally, LLM training is oriented toward the average case and not extreme outliers, which is what’s necessary for security.The result is that the current generation of LLMs is far more gullible than people. They’re naive and regularly fall for manipulative <a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/09/these-psychological-tricks-can-get-llms-to-respond-to-forbidden-prompts/" target="_blank">cognitive tricks</a> that wouldn’t fool a third-grader, such as flattery, appeals to groupthink, and a false sense of urgency. There’s a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgyk2p55g8o" target="_blank">story</a> about a Taco Bell AI system that crashed when a customer ordered 18,000 cups of water. A human fast-food worker would just laugh at the customer.<h2>The Limits of AI Agents</h2>Prompt injection is an unsolvable problem that <a href="https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/sp/5555/01/11194053/2aB2Rf5nZ0k" target="_blank">gets worse</a> when we give AIs tools and tell them to act independently. This is the promise of <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tag/agentic-ai" target="_blank">AI agents</a>: LLMs that can use tools to perform multistep tasks after being given general instructions. Their flattening of context and identity, along with their baked-in independence and overconfidence, mean that they will repeatedly and unpredictably take actions—and sometimes they will take the <a href="https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/28/ai_browsers_prompt_injection/" target="_blank"> wrong ones</a>.Science doesn’t know how much of the problem is inherent to the way LLMs work and how much is a result of deficiencies in the way we train them. The overconfidence and obsequiousness of LLMs are training choices. The lack of an interruption reflex is a deficiency in engineering. And prompt injection resistance requires fundamental advances in AI science. We honestly don’t know if it’s possible to build an LLM, where trusted commands and untrusted inputs are processed through the <a href="https://cacm.acm.org/opinion/llms-data-control-path-insecurity/" target="_blank">same channel</a>, which is immune to prompt injection attacks.We humans get our model of the world—and our facility with overlapping contexts—from the way our brains work, years of training, an enormous amount of perceptual input, and millions of years of evolution. Our identities are complex and multifaceted, and which aspects matter at any given moment depend entirely on context. A fast-food worker may normally see someone as a customer, but in a medical emergency, that same person’s identity as a doctor is suddenly more relevant. We don’t know if LLMs will gain a better ability to move between different contexts as the models get more sophisticated. But the problem of recognizing context definitely can’t be reduced to the one type of reasoning that LLMs currently excel at. Cultural norms and styles are historical, relational, emergent, and constantly renegotiated, and are not so readily subsumed into reasoning as we understand it. Knowledge itself can be both logical and discursive.The AI researcher Yann LeCunn believes that improvements will come from embedding AIs in a physical presence and giving them “<a href="https://medium.com/@AnthonyLaneau/beyond-llms-charting-the-next-frontiers-of-ai-with-yann-lecun-09e84f1978f9" target="_blank">world models</a>.” Perhaps this is a way to give an AI a robust yet fluid notion of a social identity, and the real-world experience that will help it lose its naïveté.Ultimately we are probably faced with a <a href="https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/sp/5555/01/11194053/2aB2Rf5nZ0k" target="_blank">security trilemma</a> when it comes to AI agents: fast, smart, and secure are the desired attributes, but you can only get two. At the drive-through, you want to prioritize fast and secure. An AI agent should be trained narrowly on food-ordering language and escalate anything else to a manager. Otherwise, every action becomes a coin flip. Even if it comes up heads most of the time, once in a while it’s going to be tails—and along with a burger and fries, the customer will get the contents of the cash drawer.

Jan 20, 2026

From Vietnam Boat Refugee to Reliability Engineering Scholar

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/hoang-pham-smiling-against-an-abstract-ai-background.jpg?id=62856322&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C83%2C0%2C84"/> <a href="https://ise.rutgers.edu/hoang-pham" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Hoang Pham</a> has spent his career trying to ensure that some of the world’s most critical systems don’t fail, including commercial aircraft engines, nuclear facilities, and massive data centers that underpin AI and cloud computing.A professor of industrial and systems engineering at<a href="https://ise.rutgers.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Rutgers University</a> in New Brunswick, N.J., and a longtime volunteer for <a href="https://www.ieee.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE</a>, Pham, an IEEE Life Fellow, is internationally recognized for advancing the mathematical foundations of reliability engineering. His work earned him<a href="https://resourcecenter.rs.ieee.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> </a>the <a href="https://resourcecenter.rs.ieee.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Reliability Society</a>’s <a href="https://students.ieee.org/annual-reliability-society-engineer-of-the-year-award/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Engineer of the Year Award</a> in 2009. He was recognized for helping to shape how engineers model risk in complex, data-rich systems.<h3>Hoang Pham</h3> EmployerRutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.Job titleProfessor of industrial and systems engineeringMember gradeLife FellowAlma maters Northeastern Illinois University, in Chicago; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and SUNY Buffalo.The discipline that defines his career was forged long before equations, peer-reviewed journals, or keynote speeches. It began on an overcrowded fishing boat in 1979 when he was fleeing Vietnam after the war, when survival as one of the country’s “boat people” depended on endurance, luck, and the fragile reliability of a vessel never meant to carry so many lives. Like thousands of others, he fled from his war-torn country after the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Fall-of-Saigon" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">fall of Saigon</a>, which was controlled by communist North Vietnamese forces.To mark the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon in 1975, Pham and his son Hoang Jr.—a Rutgers computer science graduate turned filmmaker—produced <a href="https://youtu.be/rSqNQqxkU-o?si=e3F8yW28hLfQV-a0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Unstoppable Hope</a>, a documentary about Vietnam’s boat people. The film tells the stories of a dozen refugees who, like Pham, survived perilous escapes and went on to build successful lives in the United States.<h2>Growing up during the Vietnam War</h2>Pham was born in <a href="https://vietnam.travel/things-to-do/binh-thuan-much-more-white-sand-golden-sunshine-and-blue-sea" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bình Thuận</a>, Vietnam. His parents had only a little formal education, having grown up in the 1930s, when schooling was rare. To support their eight children, his parents ran a factory making bricks by hand. Despite their limited means, his parents held an unshakable belief that education was the surest path to a better life.From an early age, Pham gravitated toward mathematics. Computers were scarce, but numbers and logic came naturally to him. He imagined becoming a teacher or professor and gradually began thinking about how mathematics could be applied to practical problems—how abstract reasoning might improve daily life.His intellectual curiosity unfolded amid frequent danger. He grew up during the Vietnam War, when dodging gunfire in his province was routine. The<a href="https://www.history.com/articles/tet-offensive" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> 1968 Tet Offensive</a> exposed the full scale of the conflict, making it clear that violence was not an interruption to life but a condition of it.Pham recalls that after the<a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/april-30/south-vietnam-surrenders" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Communist takeover of South Vietnam</a> in 1975, conditions worsened dramatically. Families without ties to the new government, especially those who operated small businesses, found it increasingly dangerous to work, study, or apply for jobs, he says. People began vanishing. Many attempted to escape by boat, knowing the risks: imprisonment if caught or potentially death at sea.<h2>A successful escape</h2>In June 1979, at the height of Vietnam’s typhoon season, Pham’s mother made an agonizing decision. She placed Pham, then 18 years old, onto a small, overcrowded fishing vessel in the hope that he might reach freedom.The boat, which was designed to carry about 100 people, departed with 275.Pham’s 12-day journey was harrowing. He was confined to the lower deck, which was packed so tightly that movement was nearly impossible. Seasickness overwhelmed many passengers, and he remembers losing consciousness shortly after departure. Food was scarce, and safe drinking water was nearly nonexistent. Violent storms battered the vessel, and pirates loomed.“Every moment felt like a struggle against nature, fate, and internal despair,” Pham says.The boat eventually washed ashore on a remote island off the Malaysian coast. Arriving at a refugee camp offered little relief; food and clean water were scarce, disease spread rapidly, and nearly everyone—including Pham—contracted malaria. Death came almost nightly.After two weeks, Malaysian authorities transferred the refugees to a transit camp, where the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">United Nations</a> provided basic rations. Still, the asylum seekers’ futures remained uncertain. It is estimated by the U.N. <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/us/about-unhcr" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Refugee Agency</a> that between 1975 and the early 1990s, roughly 800,000 Vietnamese people attempted to escape by boat. As many as 250,000 did not survive the harrowing journey, the agency estimates.<h2>Starting over with nothing</h2>In January 1980, at age 19, Pham learned that someone in the United States had agreed to sponsor him for entry, he says. He soon boarded an airplane for the first time and landed in Seattle.His troubles weren’t over, however. He arrived in a city blanketed by snow, wearing thin clothing and carrying only a spare shirt. The frosty weather was not his greatest concern, though. During his first two months, he spent most of his time in a hospital, recovering from malaria and other diseases. And he spoke no English.Still, Pham—who had been a first-year college student in Vietnam—refused to abandon his goal of becoming a teacher, he says. He enrolled at<a href="https://lincolnhs.seattleschools.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Lincoln High School</a> in order to gain English proficiency and position himself to enter an American college. One teacher allowed him to test into a calculus class despite his limited English—which he passed.“That moment told me I could survive here,” Pham says.Within months, he learned he could attend college on a scholarship. He moved to Chicago in August 1980 to study at the<a href="https://nl.edu/national-college-of-education/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> National College of Education</a>, then he transferred to<a href="https://www.neiu.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Northeastern Illinois University</a>, also in Chicago, earning bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and computer science in 1982.Encouraged by mentors, he earned a master’s degree in statistics at the<a href="https://illinois.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> University of Illinois</a> at Urbana-Champaign in 1984, followed by a Ph.D. in reliability engineering at the <a href="https://www.buffalo.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">State University of New York at Buffalo</a> in 1989.<h2>When failure is not an option</h2>Pham’s research direction crystallized in 1988 while searching for a dissertation topic. He was reading the January 1988 issue of<a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/" target="_self"> IEEE Spectrum</a> and had a flash of inspiration after seeing a classified ad posted by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Defense" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">U.S. Defense Department</a>’s Naval Underwater System Center (now known as the <a href="https://tethys.pnnl.gov/organization/naval-undersea-warfare-center-nuwc" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Naval Undersea Warfare Center</a>). The ad asked, “Can your theories solve the unsolvable?” It focused on the reliability of undersea communication and combat decision-making systems.The ad revealed to him that institutions were actively applying mathematics and statistics to solve engineering problems. Pham says he still keeps a copy of that Spectrum issue in his office.After completing his Ph.D., he joined<a href="https://www.boeing.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Boeing</a> as a senior specialist engineer at its Renton, Wash., facility, working on engine reliability for the<a href="https://www.boeing.com/commercial/777" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> 777</a> aircraft, which was under development.He worked there for 18 months, then accepted a senior engineering specialist position at the<a href="https://inl.gov/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Idaho National Laboratory</a>, in Idaho Falls, where he worked on nuclear systems.His desire to become an instructor never left him, however. In 1993 he joined Rutgers as an assistant professor of industrial and systems engineering.Today his research focuses on reliability in modern, data-intensive systems, including<a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/topic/artificial-intelligence/" target="_self"> AI</a> infrastructure and global<a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tag/data-centers" target="_self"> data centers</a>.“The problem now isn’t getting data,” he says. “It’s knowing which data to trust.”<h2>Charting his IEEE journey</h2>Pham joined IEEE in 1985 as a student member and credits the organization with shaping much of his professional life. IEEE provided a platform for scholarship, collaboration, and visibility at critical moments in his career, he says.He served as associate technical editor of<a href="https://www.comsoc.org/publications/magazines/ieee-communications-magazine" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> IEEE Communications Magazine</a> from 1992 to 2000, was a guest editor for a special issue on fault-tolerant software in the June 1993<a href="https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=17387&tip=sid#google_vignette" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> IEEE Transactions on Reliability</a>, and was the program vice chair of the annual IEEE<a href="https://rams.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Reliability and Maintainability Symposium</a> in 1994. In 2024 he returned to Vietnam as a plenary speaker at the 16th <a href="https://sice-si.org/SII2024/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integration</a>.In addition to being named a distinguished professor at Rutgers, he served as chair of the<a href="https://www.ise.rutgers.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> industrial and systems engineering department</a> from 2007 to 2013.“If my journey holds one lesson,” he says, “it is this: Struggle builds resilience, and resilience makes the extraordinary possible. Even in darkness, perseverance lights the way.”

Jan 20, 2026

The Quest to Build a Radio Telescope That Can Hear the Cosmic Dark Ages

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/photo-of-a-man-in-a-sports-jacket-standing-in-front-of-a-detailed-image-of-the-moon.jpg?id=62815043&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C455%2C0%2C455"/> Isolation dictates where we go to see into the far reaches of the universe. The <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/vera-rubin-observatory-first-images" target="_self">Atacama Desert</a> of Chile, the summit of <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/jupiter-auroras-jaxa-nasa" target="_self">Mauna Kea</a> in Hawaii, the vast expanse of the <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/far-from-radio-interference-the-square-kilometre-array-takes-root-in-south-africa-and-the-australian-outback" target="_self">Australian Outback</a>—these are where astronomers and engineers have built the great observatories and radio telescopes of modern times. The skies are usually clear, the air is arid, and the electronic din of civilization is far away.It was to one of these places, in the high desert of New Mexico, that a young astronomer named <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/faculty/burns/" target="_blank">Jack Burns</a> went to study radio jets and quasars far beyond the Milky Way. It was 1979, he was just out of grad school, and the <a href="https://public.nrao.edu/telescopes/vla/" target="_blank">Very Large Array</a>, a constellation of 28 giant dish antennas on an open plain, was a new mecca of radio astronomy.But the VLA had its limitations—namely, that Earth’s protective atmosphere and ionosphere blocked many parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, and that, even in a remote desert, earthly interference was never completely gone.Could there be a better, even lonelier place to put a radio telescope? Sure, a NASA planetary scientist named <a href="https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/NASA_HQ/SMD/MendellWW/MendellWW_9-20-17.htm" target="_blank">Wendell Mendell</a>, told Burns: How about the moon? He asked if Burns had ever thought about building one there.“My immediate reaction was no. Maybe even hell, no. Why would I want to do that?” Burns recalls with a self-deprecating smile. His work at the VLA had gone well, he was fascinated by cosmology’s big questions, and he didn’t want to be slowed by the bureaucratic slog of getting funding to launch a new piece of hardware.But Mendell suggested he do some research and speak at a conference on future lunar observatories, and Burns’s thinking about a space-based radio telescope began to shift. That was in 1984. In the four decades since, he’s published more than <a href="https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/search/filter_database_fq_database=OR&filter_database_fq_database=database%3A%22astronomy%22&format=SHORT&fq=%7B!type%3Daqp%20v%3D%24fq_database%7D&fq_database=(database%3A%22astronomy%22)&q=%3Dauthor%3A(%22burns%2C%20jack%22%20OR%20%22burns%2C%20jack%20o.%22%20OR%20%22burns%2C%20j.o.%22)&sort=score%20desc%2C%20bibcode%20desc&unprocessed_parameter=qform&unprocessed_parameter=Require%20Field%20for%20Selection&p_=0" target="_blank">500 peer-reviewed papers</a> on radio astronomy. He’s been an <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/nac/nac-meetings-archive-2009-2016/" target="_blank">adviser</a> to <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/faculty/burns/about-jack" target="_blank">NASA</a>, the Department of Energy, and the White House, as well as a professor and a university administrator. And while doing all that, Burns has had an ongoing second job of sorts, as a quietly persistent advocate for radio astronomy from space.And early next year, if all goes well, a radio telescope for which he’s a scientific investigator will be launched—not just into space, not just to the moon, but to the moon’s far side, where it will observe things invisible from Earth.“You can see we don’t lack for ambition after all these years,” says Burns, now 73 and a professor emeritus of astrophysics at <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/faculty/burns/about-jack" target="_blank">the University of Colorado Boulder</a>.The instrument is called <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.10345" target="_blank">LuSEE-Night</a>, short for <a href="https://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=122408" target="_blank">Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment–Night</a><a href="https://assets.science.nasa.gov/dynamicimage/assets/science/psd/lunar-science/lunar-landers/Firefly_Blue%20Ghost%20Mission%202_2025.jpg?w=2689&h=1513&fit=clip&crop=faces%2Cfocalpoint" target="_blank">.</a> It will be launched from Florida aboard a SpaceX rocket and carried to the moon’s far side atop a squat four-legged robotic spacecraft called <a href="https://fireflyspace.com/missions/blue-ghost-mission-2/" target="_blank">Blue Ghost Mission 2</a>, built and operated by <a href="https://fireflyspace.com/" target="_blank">Firefly Aerospace</a> of Cedar Park, Texas. <img alt="Illustration of a four-legged structure with solar panels on the sides on the surface of the moon. " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8ac04a163bc8b1148f2abde76401f793" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="f6e66" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/illustration-of-a-four-legged-structure-with-solar-panels-on-the-sides-on-the-surface-of-the-moon.png?id=62815356&width=980"/>In an artist’s rendering, the LuSEE-Night radio telescope sits atop Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost 2 lander, which will carry it to the moon’s far side. Firefly Aerospace Landing will be <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/lunar-landing" target="_self">risky</a>: Blue Ghost 2 will be on its own, in a place that’s out of the sight of ground controllers. But Firefly’s <a href="https://fireflyspace.com/missions/blue-ghost-mission-1/" target="_blank">Blue Ghost 1</a> pulled off the first successful landing by a private company on the moon’s near side in March 2025. And Burns has already put hardware on the lunar surface, albeit with mixed results: An experiment he helped conceive was on board a lander called <a href="https://www.intuitivemachines.com/im-1" target="_blank">Odysseus</a>, built by Houston-based <a href="https://www.intuitivemachines.com/" target="_blank">Intuitive Machines</a>, in 2024. Odysseus was damaged on landing, but Burns’s experiment still returned some useful data.Burns says he’d be bummed about that 2024 mission if there weren’t so many more coming up. He’s joined in proposing myriad designs for radio telescopes that could go to the moon. And he’s kept going through political disputes, technical delays, even a confrontation with cancer. Finally, finally, the effort is paying off.“We’re getting our feet into the lunar soil,” says Burns, “and understanding what is possible with these radio telescopes in a place where we’ve never observed before.”<h2>Why Go to the Far Side of the Moon? </h2>A moon-based radio telescope could help unravel some of the greatest mysteries in space science. Dark matter, dark energy, neutron stars, and gravitational waves could all come into better focus if observed from the moon. One of Burns’s collaborators on LuSEE-Night, astronomer <a href="https://pma.caltech.edu/people/gregg-w-hallinan" target="_blank">Gregg Hallinan</a> of Caltech, would like such a telescope to further his research on <a href="https://www.kiss.caltech.edu/impact/Hallinan.html" target="_blank">electromagnetic activity around exoplanets</a>, a possible measure of whether these distant worlds are habitable. Burns himself is especially interested in the <a href="https://www.hilarispublisher.com/open-access/physics-of-cosmic-dark-ages-100436.html" target="_blank">cosmic dark ages</a>, an epoch that began more than 13 billion years ago, just 380,000 years after the big bang. The young universe had cooled enough for neutral hydrogen atoms to form, which trapped the light of stars and galaxies. The dark ages lasted between 200 million and 400 million years.<h3></h3> <div class="flourish-embed flourish-timeline" data-src="visualisation/27231096?602891"><script src="https://public.flourish.studio/resources/embed.js"></script><noscript><img alt="timeline visualization" src="https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/27231096/thumbnail" width="100%"/></noscript></div>LuSEE-Night will listen for faint signals from the cosmic dark ages, a period that began about 380,000 years after the big bang, when neutral hydrogen atoms had begun to form, trapping the light of stars and galaxies. Chris Philpot“It’s a critical period in the history of the universe,” says Burns. “But we have no data from it.”The problem is that residual radio signals from this epoch are very faint and easily drowned out by closer noise—in particular, our earthly communications networks, power grids, radar, and so forth. The sun adds its share, too. What’s more, these early signals have been dramatically redshifted by the expansion of the universe, their wavelengths stretched as their sources have sped away from us over billions of years. The most critical example is neutral hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, which when excited in the laboratory emits a radio signal with a wavelength of 21 centimeters. Indeed, with just <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/software-defined-radio" target="_self">some backyard equipment</a>, you can easily detect neutral hydrogen in nearby galactic gas clouds close to that wavelength, which corresponds to a frequency of 1.42 gigahertz. But if the hydrogen signal originates from the dark ages, those 21 centimeters are lengthened to tens of meters. That means scientists need to listen to frequencies well below 50 megahertz—parts of the radio spectrum that are largely blocked by Earth’s ionosphere.Which is why the lunar far side holds such appeal. It may just be the quietest site in the inner solar system.“It really is the only place in the solar system that never faces the Earth,” says <a href="https://astro.berkeley.edu/people/david-deboer/" target="_blank">David DeBoer</a>, a research astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley. “It really is kind of a wonderful, unique place.”For radio astronomy, things get even better during the lunar night, when the sun drops beneath the horizon and is blocked by the moon’s mass. For up to 14 Earth-days at a time, a spot on the moon’s far side is about as electromagnetically dark as any place in the inner solar system can be. No radiation from the sun, no confounding signals from Earth. There may be signals from a few distant space probes, but otherwise, ideally, your antenna only hears the raw noise of the cosmos.“When you get down to those very low radio frequencies, there’s a source of noise that appears that’s associated with the solar wind,” says Caltech’s Hallinan. Solar wind is the stream of charged particles that speed relentlessly from the sun. “And the only location where you can escape that within a billion kilometers of the Earth is on the lunar surface, on the nighttime side. The solar wind screams past it, and you get a cavity where you can hide away from that noise.”<h2>How Does LuSEE-Night Work? </h2>LuSEE-Night’s receiver looks simple, though there’s really nothing simple about it. Up top are <a href="https://arxiv.org/html/2407.07173v1#S2" target="_blank">two dipole antennas</a>, each of which consists of two collapsible rods pointing in opposite directions. The dipole antennas are mounted perpendicular to each other on a small <a href="https://physicalsciences.lbl.gov/2025/09/15/berkeley-lab-engineer-designs-hardware-for-the-moons-unforgiving-environment/" target="_blank">turntable</a>, forming an X when seen from above. Each dipole antenna extends to about 6 meters. The turntable sits atop a box of support equipment that’s a bit less than a cubic meter in volume; the equipment bay, in turn, sits atop the <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/lunar-science/clps-deliveries/cs-3/" target="_blank">Blue Ghost 2</a> lander, a boxy spacecraft about 2 meters tall. <img alt="A person wearing a hairnet, facemask, and vinyl gloves working on a shiny metal apparatus." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="aca2f5aef83aa4834d9a616a5e9be5ed" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="3e129" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-person-wearing-a-hairnet-facemask-and-vinyl-gloves-working-on-a-shiny-metal-apparatus.png?id=62822192&width=980"/> <img alt="A photo of people wearing hairnets, facemasks, and vinyl gloves working on a shiny metal apparatus. " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="28e2b518fcdd365420b2780667e05259" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="341a7" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-photo-of-people-wearing-hairnets-facemasks-and-vinyl-gloves-working-on-a-shiny-metal-apparatus.png?id=62822190&width=980"/> <img alt="A person wearing a hairnet, facemask, and vinyl gloves working on a shiny metal apparatus." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ff7c51697658f771e1dfb402ed4492cf" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="76e4f" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-person-wearing-a-hairnet-facemask-and-vinyl-gloves-working-on-a-shiny-metal-apparatus.png?id=62822146&width=980"/> LuSEE-Night undergoes final assembly [top and center] at the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, and testing [bottom] at Firefly Aerospace outside Austin, Texas. From top: Space Sciences Laboratory/University of California, Berkeley (2); Firefly Aerospace “It’s a beautiful instrument,” says <a href="https://physics.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/stuart-bale" target="_blank">Stuart Bale</a>, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, who is NASA’s principal investigator for the project. “We don’t even know what the radio sky looks like at these frequencies without the sun in the sky. I think that’s what LuSEE-Night will give us.”The apparatus was designed to serve several incompatible needs: It had to be sensitive enough to detect very weak signals from deep space; rugged enough to withstand the extremes of the lunar environment; and quiet enough to not interfere with its own observations, yet loud enough to talk to Earth via relay satellite as needed. Plus the instrument had to stick to a budget of about US $40 million and not weigh more than 120 kilograms. The mission plan calls for two years of operations.The antennas are made of a beryllium copper alloy, chosen for its high conductivity and stability as lunar temperatures plummet or soar by as much as 250 °C every time the sun rises or sets. LuSEE-Night will make precise voltage measurements of the signals it receives, using a high-impedance junction field-effect transistor to act as an amplifier for each antenna. The signals are then fed into a spectrometer—the main science instrument—which reads those voltages at <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.10345" target="_blank">102.4 million samples per second</a>. That high read-rate is meant to prevent the exaggeration of any errors as faint signals are amplified. Scientists believe that a cosmic dark-ages signature would be five to six orders of magnitude weaker than the other signals that LuSEE-Night will record.The turntable is there to help characterize the signals the antennas receive, so that, among other things, an ancient dark-ages signature can be distinguished from closer, newer signals from, say, galaxies or interstellar gas clouds. Data from the early universe should be virtually <a href="https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1973ApJ...180..317C%22%3ECollins" target="_blank">isotropic</a>, meaning that it comes from all over the sky, regardless of the antennas’ orientation. Newer signals are more likely to come from a specific direction. Hence the turntable: If you collect data over the course of a lunar night, then reorient the antennas and listen again, you’ll be better able to distinguish the distant from the very, very distant.What’s the ideal lunar <a href="https://arxiv.org/html/2407.07173v1#S3" target="_blank">landing spot</a> if you want to take such readings? One as nearly opposite Earth as possible, on a flat plain. Not an easy thing to find on the moon’s hummocky far side, but mission planners pored over maps made by lunar satellites and chose a prime location about 24 degrees south of the lunar equator.Other lunar telescopes have been proposed for placement in the permanently shadowed craters near the <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/moon-base" target="_self">moon’s south pole</a>, just over the horizon when viewed from Earth. Such craters are coveted for the water ice they may hold, and the low temperatures in them (below -240 °C) are great if you’re doing infrared astronomy and need to keep your instruments cold. But the location is terrible if you’re working in long-wavelength radio.“Even the inside of such craters would be hard to shield from Earth-based radio frequency interference (RFI) signals,” <a href="https://leonkoopmans.com/about/" target="_blank">Leon Koopmans</a> of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, said in an email. “They refract off the crater rims and often, due to their long wavelength, simply penetrate right through the crater rim.”RFI is a major—and sometimes maddening—issue for sensitive instruments. The first-ever landing on the lunar far side was by the Chinese <a href="https://www.cnsa.gov.cn/english/n6465652/n6465653/c6805233/content.html" target="_blank">Chang’e 4</a> spacecraft, in 2019. It carried a <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2022RS007595" target="_blank">low-frequency radio spectrometer</a>, among other experiments. But it failed to return meaningful results, Chinese researchers said, mostly because of interference from the spacecraft itself.<h2>The Accidental Birth of Radio Astronomy </h2>Sometimes, though, a little interference makes history. Here, it’s worth a pause to remember <a href="https://legacy.nrao.edu/epo/aoc/puente/jansky/hist_jansky.shtml" target="_blank">Karl Jansky</a>, considered the <a href="https://aas.org/posts/news/2018/07/month-astronomical-history-1" target="_blank">father of radio astronomy</a>. In 1928, he was a young engineer at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Holmdel, N.J., assigned to isolate <a href="https://www.aps.org/archives/publications/apsnews/201505/physicshistory.cfm" target="_blank">sources of static in shortwave transatlantic telephone calls</a>. Two years later, he built a <a href="https://www.bigear.org/CSMO/HTML/CS12/cs12p08.htm" target="_blank">30-meter-long directional antenna</a>, mostly out of brass and wood, and after accounting for thunderstorms and the like, there was still noise he couldn’t explain. At first, its strength seemed to follow a daily cycle, rising and sinking with the sun. But after a few months’ observation, the sun and the noise were badly out of sync. <img alt="Black and white photo of a man standing in a field in front of a large structure made of crisscrossing segments and resting on wheels. " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="61aae093ae07d953a2386e9caccb4ac0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="8d525" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/black-and-white-photo-of-a-man-standing-in-a-field-in-front-of-a-large-structure-made-of-crisscrossing-segments-and-resting-on-w.png?id=62821778&width=980"/> In 1930, Karl Jansky, a Bell Labs engineer in Holmdel, N.J., built this rotating antenna on wheels to identify sources of static for radio communications. NRAO/AUI/NSF It gradually became clear that the noise’s period wasn’t 24 hours; it was 23 hours and 56 minutes—the time it takes Earth to turn once relative to the stars. The strongest interference seemed to come from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, which optical astronomy suggested was the center of the Milky Way. In 1933, Jansky published a paper in <a href="https://proceedingsoftheieee.ieee.org/about/history/" target="_blank">Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers</a> with a provocative title: “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/JPROC.1998.681378" target="_blank">Electrical Disturbances Apparently of Extraterrestrial Origin</a>.” He had opened the electromagnetic spectrum up to astronomers, even though he never got to pursue radio astronomy himself. The interference he had defined was, to him, “star noise.”Thirty-two years later, two other Bell Labs scientists, <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1978/penzias/biographical/" target="_blank">Arno Penzias</a> and <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1978/wilson/facts/" target="_blank">Robert Wilson</a>, ran into some interference of their own. In 1965 they were trying to adapt a <a href="https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NHLS/89002457_text" target="_blank">horn antenna</a> in Holmdel for radio astronomy—but there was a hiss, in the <a href="https://aether.lbl.gov/www/science/cmb.html" target="_blank">microwave</a> band, coming from all parts of the sky. They had no idea what it was. They ruled out interference from New York City, not far to the north. They rewired the receiver. They cleaned out bird droppings in the antenna. Nothing worked. <img alt="Black and white photo of a large triangular structure on a frame, with two people looking up at it. " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4b1d9f82c9bdc76a35cdd377c2809677" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="fa4de" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/black-and-white-photo-of-a-large-triangular-structure-on-a-frame-with-two-people-looking-up-at-it.jpg?id=62822141&width=980"/> In the 1960s, Arno Penzias and Robert W. Wilson used this horn antenna in Holmdel, N.J., to detect faint signals from the big bang. GL Archive/Alamy Meanwhile, an hour’s drive away, a team of physicists at Princeton University under <a href="https://phy.princeton.edu/department/history/faculty-history/robert-dicke" target="_blank">Robert Dicke</a> was trying to find proof of the big bang that began the universe 13.8 billion years ago. They theorized that it would have left a hiss, in the microwave band, coming from all parts of the sky. They’d begun to build an antenna. Then Dicke got a phone call from Penzias and Wilson, looking for help. “Well, boys, we’ve been scooped,” he famously said when the call was over. Penzias and Wilson had accidentally found the <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/big-bang-theory-discovery" target="_self">cosmic microwave background</a>, or CMB, the leftover radiation from the big bang.Burns and his colleagues are figurative heirs to Jansky, Penzias, and Wilson. Researchers suggest that the giveaway signature of the cosmic dark ages may be a <a href="https://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=221439" target="_blank">minuscule dip</a> in the CMB. They theorize that dark-ages hydrogen may be detectable only because it has been absorbing a little bit of the microwave energy from the dawn of the universe.<h2>The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress </h2>The plan for Blue Ghost Mission 2 is to touch down soon after the sun has risen at the landing site. That will give mission managers two weeks to check out the spacecraft, take pictures, conduct other experiments that Blue Ghost carries, and charge LuSEE-Night’s battery pack with its photovoltaic panels. Then, as local sunset comes, they’ll turn everything off except for the LuSEE-Night receiver and a bare minimum of support systems. <img alt="Image of the moon's surface, with a closeup of one section. " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bc6fd1e96f6351b1efe30ebdfd0ec1f5" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="5b48b" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/image-of-the-moon-s-surface-with-a-closeup-of-one-section.png?id=62815382&width=980"/>LuSEE-Night will land at a site [orange dot] that’s about 25 degrees south of the moon’s equator and opposite the center of the moon’s face as seen from Earth. The moon’s far side is ideal for radio astronomy because it’s shielded from the solar wind as well as signals from Earth. Arizona State University/GSFC/NASA There, in the frozen electromagnetic stillness, it will scan the spectrum between 0.1 and 50 MHz, gathering data for a low-frequency <a href="https://arxiv.org/html/2508.16773v1" target="_blank">map</a> of the sky—maybe including the first tantalizing signature of the dark ages.“It’s going to be really tough with that instrument,” says Burns. “But we have some hardware and software techniques that…we’re hoping will allow us to detect what’s called the global or all-sky signal.… We, in principle, have the sensitivity.” They’ll listen and listen again over the course of the mission. That is, if their equipment doesn’t freeze or fry first.A major task for LuSEE-Night is to protect the <a href="https://arxiv.org/html/2407.07173v1" target="_blank">electronics</a> that run it. <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/moon/weather-on-the-moon/" target="_blank">Temperature extremes</a> are the biggest problem. Systems can be hardened against cosmic radiation, and a sturdy spacecraft should be able to handle the stresses of launch, flight, and landing. But how do you build it to last when temperatures range between 120 and −130 °C? With layers of insulation? Electric heaters to reduce nighttime chill?“All of the above,” says Burns. To reject daytime heat, there will be a multicell parabolic radiator panel on the outside of the equipment bay. To keep warm at night, there will be battery power—a lot of battery power. Of LuSEE-Night’s launch mass of 108 kg, about 38 kg is a lithium-ion battery pack with a capacity of 7,160 watt-hours, mostly to generate heat. The battery cells will recharge photovoltaically after the sun rises. The all-important spectrometer has been programmed to cycle off periodically during the two weeks of darkness, so that the battery’s state of charge doesn’t drop below 8 percent; better to lose some observing time than lose the entire apparatus and not be able to revive it.<h2>Lunar Radio Astronomy for the Long Haul </h2>And if they can’t revive it? Burns has been through that before. In 2024 he watched helplessly as Odysseus, the first U.S.-made lunar lander in 50 years, touched down—and then went silent for 15 agonizing minutes until controllers in Texas realized they were receiving only occasional pings instead of detailed data. Odysseus <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/lunar-landing-intuitive-machines" target="_self">had landed</a> hard, snapped a leg, and ended up lying almost on its side. <img alt="Color photo of a metal structure inside an open rocket. " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="09fd5a25e9cdd1ac73cdfb825814bb37" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="97286" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/color-photo-of-a-metal-structure-inside-an-open-rocket.png?id=62822546&width=980"/> ROLSES-1, shown here inside a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, was the first radio telescope to land on the moon, in February 2024. During a hard landing, one leg broke, making it difficult for the telescope to send readings back to Earth.Intuitive Machines/SpaceXAs part of its scientific cargo, Odysseus carried <a href="https://arxiv.org/html/2503.09842v2#S3" target="_blank">ROLSES-1</a> (Radiowave Observations on the Lunar Surface of the photo-Electron Sheath), an experiment Burns and a friend had suggested to NASA years before. It was partly a test of technology, partly to study the complex interactions between sunlight, radiation, and lunar soil—there’s enough electric charge in the soil sometimes that dust particles levitate above the moon’s surface, which could potentially mess with radio observations. But Odysseus was damaged badly enough that instead of a week’s worth of data, ROLSES got 2 hours, most of it recorded before the landing. A grad student working with Burns, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Joshua-J-Hibbard-2182593048" target="_blank">Joshua Hibbard</a>, managed to partially salvage the experiment and prove that ROLSES had worked: Hidden in its raw data were <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ae18d8" target="_blank">signals from Earth and the Milky Way</a>.“It was a harrowing experience,” Burns said afterward, “and I’ve told my students and friends that I don’t want to be first on a lander again. I want to be second, so that we have a greater chance to be successful.” He says he feels good about LuSEE-Night being on the Blue Ghost 2 mission, especially after the successful Blue Ghost 1 landing. The ROLSES experiment, meanwhile, will get a second chance: ROLSES-2 has been scheduled to fly on <a href="https://fireflyspace.com/missions/blue-ghost-mission-3/" target="_blank">Blue Ghost Mission 3</a>, perhaps in 2028. <img alt="Artist\u2019s rendering of a gray surface with parallel zigzagging lines. " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="99103eff7bd449b73b15a8dd9489b922" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="bbc57" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/artist-u2019s-rendering-of-a-gray-surface-with-parallel-zigzagging-lines.png?id=62821827&width=980"/> NASA’s plan for the FarView Observatory lunar radio telescope array, shown in an artist’s rendering, calls for 100,000 dipole antennas to be spread out over 200 square kilometers. Ronald Polidan If LuSEE-Night succeeds, it will doubtless raise questions that require much <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.03418" target="_blank">more ambitious radio telescopes</a>. Burns, Hallinan, and others have already gotten early NASA funding for a giant interferometric array on the moon called <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273117724003405?via%3Dihub" target="_blank">FarView</a>. It would consist of a grid of 100,000 antenna nodes spread over 200 square kilometers, made of aluminum <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/blue-origin-molten-regolith-electrolysis" target="_self">extracted from lunar soil</a>. They say assembly could begin as soon as the 2030s, although political and budget realities may get in the way.Through it all, Burns has gently pushed and prodded and lobbied, advocating for a lunar observatory through the terms of ten NASA administrators and seven U.S. presidents. He’s probably learned more about Washington politics than he ever wanted. American presidents have a habit of reversing the space priorities of their predecessors, so missions have sometimes proceeded full force, then languished for years. With LuSEE-Night finally headed for launch, Burns at times sounds buoyant: “Just think. We’re actually going to do cosmology from the moon.” At other times, he’s been blunt: “I never thought—none of us thought—that it would take 40 years.”“Like anything in science, there’s no guarantee,” says Burns. “But we need to look.” This article appears in the February 2026 print issue as “The Quest To Build a Telescope That Can Hear the Cosmic Dark Ages.”

Jan 18, 2026

NASA Demolishes Historic Test Stands That Built the Space Age

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-spacecraft-being-lowered-by-crane-from-a-nasa-space-center-test-stand.jpg?id=62826872&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C124%2C0%2C125"/> The thunderous roar that echoed across Huntsville, Alabama, on 10 January wasn’t a rocket launch but something equally momentous: the end of an era. Two massive test stands at <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/marshall/" target="_blank">Marshall Space Flight Center</a> that helped send humans to the moon <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/marshall/nasa-marshall-removes-2-historic-test-stands/" target="_blank">collapsed in carefully choreographed implosions</a>, their steel frameworks crumbling in seconds after decades standing as monuments to U.S. spaceflight achievement.The <a href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/saturn-v-dynamic-test-stand.htm" target="_blank">Dynamic Test Stand</a> and the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/propulsion-and-structural-test-facility.htm" target="_blank">Propulsion and Structural Test Facility</a>, better known as the T-tower for its distinctive shape, represented more than just obsolete infrastructure. Built in the 1950s and ’60s, these structures witnessed the birth of the space age, serving as proving grounds where engineers pushed the limits of rocket technology and ensured every component could withstand the violence of launch.<div class="badge_module shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image rm-float-left rm-resized-container rm-resized-container-25"> <a class="rm-stats-tracked" href="https://www.universetoday.com/" target="_blank"> <img alt='Universe Today logo; text reads "This post originally appeared on Universe Today."' class="rm-shortcode rm-lazyloadable-image" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/universe-today-logo-text-reads-this-post-originally-appeared-on-universe-today.png?id=60568425&width=1800&quality=85"/></a> </div> <h2>T-tower’s Role in Rocket Testing</h2>The T-tower came first, constructed in 1957 by the <a href="https://history.redstone.army.mil/space-abma.html" target="_blank">Army Ballistic Missile Agency</a> before NASA even existed. At just over 50 meters tall, it was designed for static testing, where rockets are fired at full power while restrained and connected to instruments that measure every vibration, temperature spike, and pressure fluctuation. Here, engineers tested components of the Saturn family of launch vehicles under the direction of Wernher von Braun, including the mighty F-1 engines that would eventually power <a data-linked-post="2650248198" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/apollo-13-we-have-a-solution" target="_blank">Apollo missions</a>. The tower later proved essential for testing space shuttle solid rocket boosters before being retired in the 1990s.The Dynamic Test Stand told an even more dramatic story. Built in 1964 and rising over 105 meters above the Alabama landscape, it once stood as the tallest human-made structure in North Alabama. Unlike the T-tower’s static tests, this facility subjected fully assembled Saturn V rockets to the mechanical stresses and vibrations they would experience during actual flight, everything shaking, flexing, and straining just as it would during launch, but without leaving the ground. Engineers couldn’t afford failures once these rockets reached the launchpad at Kennedy Space Center: Saturn V was too powerful, too expensive, and too important to risk.The stand’s role didn’t end with Apollo. In 1978, it became the first location where engineers integrated all space shuttle elements together: orbiter, external fuel tank, and solid rocket boosters assembled as one complete system. Its final mission came in the early 2000s, when it served as a drop tower for microgravity experiments, a far quieter purpose than its explosive origins.Both facilities earned designations as National Historic Landmarks in 1985, recognition of their irreplaceable contributions to human spaceflight. That makes their demolition bittersweet but necessary. The structures are no longer safe, and maintaining aging facilities drains resources that could support current missions. Marshall is removing 19 obsolete structures as part of a broader campus transformation, creating a modern, interconnected facility ready for NASA’s next chapter.“These facilities helped NASA make history. While it is hard to let them go, they’ve earned their retirement. The people who built and managed these facilities and empowered our mission of space exploration are the most important part of their legacy,” said acting Marshall director Rae Ann Meyer in a statement.NASA has worked to preserve that legacy. Detailed architectural drawings, photographs, and written histories now reside permanently in the Library of Congress. Auburn University created high-resolution digital models using <a data-linked-post="2665763899" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/lidar" target="_blank">LiDAR</a> and 360-degree photography, capturing the structures in exquisite detail before their destruction. These virtual archives ensure future generations can still appreciate the scale and engineering achievement these towers represented, even after the steel has been cleared away.

Jan 17, 2026

Are There Enough Engineers for the AI Boom?

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/aero-gas-turbines-being-installed-in-a-desert-like-landscape.jpg?id=62826721&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C83%2C0%2C84"/> <a rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The AI data center construction boom continues unabated, with the demand for power in the United States potentially reaching </a><a href="https://about.bnef.com/insights/clean-energy/ai-and-the-power-grid-where-the-rubber-meets-the-road/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">106 gigawatts by 2035</a>, according to a December report from research and analysis company BloombergNEF. That’s a 36 percent jump from the company’s previous outlook, published just seven months earlier. But there are severe constraints in power availability, material, equipment, and—perhaps most significantly—a lack of engineers, technicians, and skilled craftsmen that could turn the data center boom into a bust.<a href="#_msocom_1" target="_blank"></a>The power grid engineering workforce is <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/power-engineering-workforce-gap" target="_self">currently shrinking</a>, and data center operators are also hurting for trained <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/data-center-jobs" target="_self">electrical engineers</a>. Laura Laltrello, the chief operating officer for <a href="https://www.applieddigital.com/" target="_blank">Applied Digital</a>, says demand has accelerated for civil, mechanical, and electrical engineers, as well as construction management and oversight positions in recent months. (Applied Digital is a data center developer and operator that is building two data center campuses near Harwood, North Dakota, that will require 1.4 GW of power when completed.) The growing demand for skilled workers has forced her company to widen the recruitment perimeter.“As we anticipate a shortage of traditional engineering talent, we are sourcing from diverse industries,” says Laltrello. “We are finding experts who understand power and cooling from sectors like nuclear energy, the military, and aerospace. Expertise doesn’t have to come from a data center background.”<h2>Growing Demand for Data Center Engineers</h2>For every engineer needed to design, specify, build, inspect, commission, or run a new AI data center, dozens of other positions are in short supply. According to the Association for Computer Operations and Management’s (AFCOM) <a href="https://afcom.com/news/news.asp?id=692525" target="_blank">State of the Data Center Report 2025</a>, 58 percent of data center managers identified multiskilled data center operators as the top area of growth, while 50 percent signaled increasing demand for data center engineers. Security specialists are also a critical need.Through the next decade, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the need for almost <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-14/whats-behind-the-projected-construction-employment-growth-from-2023-to-2033.htm" target="_blank">400,000 more construction workers by 2033</a>. By far the biggest needs are in power infrastructure, electricians, plumbing, and HVAC, <a target="_blank"></a><a rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">and roughly </a><a href="https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/electrical-and-electronics-engineers.htm" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">17,500 electrical and electronics engineers</a>. These categories directly map to the skills required to design, build, commission, and operate modern data centers.“The challenge is not simply the absolute number of workers available, but the timing and intensity of demand,” says Bill Kleyman, author of the AFCOM report and the CEO of AI infrastructure firm <a href="https://www.apolo.us/" target="_blank">Apolo</a>. “Data centers are expanding at the same time that utilities, manufacturing, renewables, grid infrastructure, and construction are all competing for the same skilled labor pool, and AI is amplifying this pressure.”Data center developers like <a href="https://lancium.com/" target="_blank">Lancium</a> and construction firms like <a href="https://www.crusoe.ai/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Crusoe</a> face enormous demands to build faster, bigger, and more power-dense facilities. For example, they’re developing the Stargate project in Abilene, Texas, for Oracle and OpenAI. The project has two buildings that went live in October 2025, with another six scheduled for completion by the middle of 2026. The entire AI data center campus, once completed, will require 1.2 GW of power.<a href="#_msocom_6" target="_blank"></a><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-mcnamara-1055211/" target="_blank">Michael McNamara</a>, the CEO of <a href="https://lancium.com/" target="_blank">Lancium</a>, says that in one year his company can currently build enough AI data center infrastructure to require 1 GW of power. Big tech firms, he says, want this raised to 1 GW a quarter and eventually 1 GW per month or less.That kind of ramp-up of construction pace calls for tens of thousands more engineers. The shortage of engineering talent is paralleled by persistent staffing shortages in data center operations and facility management professionals, electrical and mechanical technicians, high-voltage and power systems engineers, skilled HVAC technicians with experience in high-density or liquid cooling, and construction specialists familiar with complex mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) integration, says <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewhawkins/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Matthew Hawkins</a>, the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a>director of education for Uptime Institute.“Demand for each category is rising significantly faster than supply,” says Hawkins.<a rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a><a rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a><a rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a>Technical colleges and applied education programs are among the most effective engines for workforce growth in the data center industry. They focus on hands-on skills, facilities operations, power and cooling systems, and real-world job readiness. With so many new data centers being built in Texas, workforce programs are popping up all over that state. One example is the SMU Lyle School of Engineering’s Master of Science in Datacenter Systems Engineering (MS DSE) in Dallas. The program blends electrical engineering, IT, facilities management, business continuity, and cybersecurity. There is also a 12-week AI data center technician program at Dallas College and a similar program at Texas State Technical College near Waco.“Technical colleges are driving the charge in bringing new talent to an industry undergoing exponential growth with an almost infinite appetite for skilled workers,” says Wendy Schuchart, an association manager at AFCOM.Vendors and industry associations are actively addressing the talent gap too. Microsoft’s <a href="https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/datacenteracademy.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Datacenter Academy</a> is a public-private partnership involving community colleges in regions where Microsoft operates data center facilities. <a rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a><a href="https://datacenters.google/workforce-development-program/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Google supports</a> local nonprofits and colleges offering training in IT and data center operations, and <a href="https://www.amazon.jobs/content/en/teams/amazon-web-services/technical-apprenticeships" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Amazon offers data center apprenticeships</a>.The <a href="https://www.siemens.com/us/en/products/energy/low-voltage/siemens-educates-america.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Siemens Educates America</a> program has surpassed 32,000 apprenticeships across 32 states, 36 labs, and 72 partner industry labor organizations. The company has committed to training 200,000 electricians and electrical manufacturing workers by 2030. Similarly, the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) operates the <a href="https://www.electricaltrainingalliance.org/AboutUs" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Electrical Training Alliance</a>; the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) offers <a href="https://learn.toolingu.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ToolingU-SME</a>, aimed at expanding the manufacturing workforce; and <a href="https://uptimeinstitute.com/education" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Uptime Institute Education</a> programs look to accelerate the readiness of technicians and operators.<a href="#_msocom_12" target="_blank"></a>“Every university we speak with is thinking about this challenge and shifting its curriculum to prepare students for the future of digital infrastructure,” said Laltrello. “The best way to predict the future is to build it.”

Jan 16, 2026

IEEE Medal of Honor Recipient Is Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/person-standing-at-a-podium-during-the-ieee-medal-of-honor-ceremony-vibrant-background-lights.jpg?id=62821722&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C208%2C0%2C209"/> <a href="https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/bios/jensen-huang" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Jensen Huang</a>, founder and CEO of <a href="https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Nvidia</a>, is the 2026 <a href="https://corporate-awards.ieee.org/ieee-medal-of-honor/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Medal of Honor</a> recipient. The IEEE honorary member is being recognized for his “leadership in the development of graphics processing units and their application to scientific computing and artificial intelligence.” The news was announced on 6 January by IEEE’s president and CEO, <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/mary-ellen-randall-2025-ieee-president-elect" target="_self">Mary Ellen Randall</a>, at the <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ces-2026-preview" target="_self">Consumer Electronics Show</a> in Las Vegas.Huang helped found Nvidia in 1993. Under his direction, the company introduced the programmable GPU six years later. The device sparked extraordinary advancements that have transformed fields including artificial intelligence, computing, and medicine—influencing how technology improves society.“[Receiving the IEEE Medal of Honor] is an incredible honor, ” Huang said at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj99M127aec" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the CES event</a>. “I thank [IEEE] for this incredible award that I receive on behalf of all the great employees at Nvidia.”With a US $2 million prize the award underscores IEEE’s commitment to celebrating visionaries who drive the future of technology for the benefit of humanity.“The IEEE Medal of Honor is the pinnacle of recognition and our most prestigious award,” Randall said <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj99M127aec" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">at the event</a>. “[Jensen] Huang’s leadership and technical vision have unlocked a new era of innovation.“His vision and subsequent development of [Nvidia’s first GPU hardware] is emblematic of the [award].”<h2>Huang’s impact on technology</h2>Huang’s impact has been acknowledged beyond the realm of engineering. He was named as one of the “Architects of AI,” a group of eight tech leaders who were collectively named <a href="https://time.com/7339685/person-of-the-year-2025-ai-architects/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Time magazine’s 2025 Person of the Year</a>. He was also featured on a 2021 cover of <a href="https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people-2021/6095971/jensen-huang/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Time magazine</a>, was named the world’s top-performing CEO for 2019 by <a href="https://hbr.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Harvard Business Review</a>, and was <a href="https://fortune.com/2017/11/16/nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Fortune</a>’s 2017 Businessperson of the Year.He is also an <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ieee-hkn-honor-society-15" target="_self">IEEE–Eta Kappa Nu</a> eminent member.This year’s IEEE Medal of Honor, along with other high-profile IEEE awards, will be presented during the <a href="https://corporate-awards.ieee.org/event/laureate-forum-honors-ceremony-gala/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Honors Ceremony</a>, to be held in April in New York City. To follow news and updates on IEEE’s most prestigious awards, follow <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/ieee-awards" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Awards</a> on LinkedIn.

Jan 16, 2026

Video Friday: Bipedal Robot Stops Itself From Falling

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/prototype-robot-next-to-a-digital-model-both-with-rounded-bodies-and-dome-shaped-heads.png?id=62822757&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=167%2C0%2C168%2C0"/> Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please <a href="mailto:[email protected]?subject=Robotics%20event%20suggestion%20for%20Video%20Friday">send us your events</a> for inclusion.<h5><a href="https://2026.ieee-icra.org/">ICRA 2026</a>: 1–5 June 2026, VIENNA</h5>Enjoy today’s videos!<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><div style="page-break-after: always"> </div>This is one of the best things I have ever seen. <iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zklqW-EtVIY?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://publish.illinois.edu/kimlab2020/">Kinetic Intelligent Machine LAB</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="vlvttnvy_mc">After years of aggressive testing and pushing the envelope with U.S. Army and Marine Corps partners, the <a data-linked-post="2650233072" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/nasa-jpl-team-costar-darpa-subt-urban-circuit-systems-track" target="_blank">Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency</a> (RACER) program approaches its conclusion. But the impact of RACER will reverberate far beyond the program’s official end date, leaving a legacy of robust autonomous capabilities ready to transform military operations and inspire a new wave of private-sector investment.</blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vLVtTNVY_Mc?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://www.darpa.mil/news/2026/racer-finish-line">DARPA</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div>Best-looking humanoid yet.<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/a_HdbR3g_co?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://kawasakirobotics.com/eu-africa/news/20200714-01/">Kawasaki</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="0hiqs3tbb5g">COSA (Cognitive OS of Agents) is a physical-world-native Agentic OS that unifies high-level cognition with whole-body motion control, enabling humanoid robots to think while acting in real environments. Powered by COSA, Oli becomes the first humanoid agent with both advanced loco-manipulation and high-level autonomous cognition.</blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0hIqs3TBb5g?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://www.limxdynamics.com/en">LimX Dynamics</a> ]Thanks, Jinyan!<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="ls_z60kjvek">The 1X World Model’s latest update is a paradigm shift in robot learning: NEO now uses a physics-grounded video model (World Model) to turn any voice or text prompt into fully autonomous action, even for completely novel tasks and objects NEO has never seen before. By leveraging internet-scale video data fine-tuned on real robot experience, NEO can visualize future actions, predict outcomes, and execute them with humanlike understanding–all without prior examples. This marks the critical first step in NEO being able to collect data on its own to master new tasks all by itself. </blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lS_z60kjVEk?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://www.1x.tech/">1X</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div>I’m impressed by the human who was mocapped for this.<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uuz00OZq_ZA?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://pndbotics.com/">PNDbotics</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="ddnnl4d1kx8">We introduce the GuideData Dataset, a collection of qualitative data, focusing on the interactions between guide dog trainers, visually impaired (BLV) individuals, and their guide dogs. The dataset captures a variety of real-world scenarios, including navigating sidewalks, climbing stairs, crossing streets, and avoiding obstacles. By providing this comprehensive dataset, the project aims to advance research in areas such as assistive technologies, robotics, and human-robot interaction, ultimately improving the mobility and safety of visually impaired people.</blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DDNnL4D1kX8?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://guidedogrobot-hgidataset.github.io/">DARoS Lab</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="_v77-uoldiq">Fourier’s desktop Care-Bot prototype is gaining much attention at <a data-linked-post="2674863582" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/robots-ces-2026" target="_blank">CES 2026</a>! Even though it’s still in the prototype stage, we couldn’t wait to share these adorable and fun interaction features with you.</blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_v77-uoLDIQ?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://www.fftai.com/">Fourier</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="7_a3bfefcje">Volcanic gas measurements are critical for understanding eruptive activity. However, harsh terrain, hazardous conditions, and logistical constraints make near-surface data collection extremely challenging. In this work, we present an autonomous legged robotic system for volcanic gas monitoring, validated through real-world deployments on Mount Etna. The system combines a quadruped robot equipped with a quadrupole mass spectrometer and a modular autonomy stack, enabling long-distance missions in rough volcanic terrain.</blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7_a3BFefcJE?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://leggedrobotics.github.io/etna-expedition/">ETH Zurich RSL</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="3fixjy2gwtg">Humanoid and Siemens successfully completed a POC testing humanoid robots in industrial logistics. This is the first step in the broader partnership between the companies. The POC focused on a tote-to-conveyor destacking task within Siemens’s logistics process. HMND 01 autonomously picked, transported, and placed totes in a live production environment during a two-week on-site deployment at the Siemens Electronics Factory in Erlangen.</blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3FIXjy2GWTg?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://thehumanoid.ai/">Humanoid</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="qjndiopdnby">Four Growers, a category leader in intelligent ag-tech platforms, developed the GR-200 <a data-linked-post="2650276075" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/autonomous-robots-plant-tend-and-harvest-entire-crop-of-barley" target="_blank">robotic harvesting</a> platform, powered by FANUC’s LR Mate robot. The system combines AI-driven vision and motion planning to identify and harvest ripe tomatoes with quick precision.</blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QJndIoPDnBY?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://www.fanucamerica.com/case-studies/automating-agriculture-greenhouse-turns-to-robots-for-tomato-harvesting">FANUC</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="nhfu5kha2fw">Columbia Engineers built a robot that, for the first time, is able to learn facial lip motions for tasks such as speech and singing. In a new study published in Science Robotics, the researchers demonstrate how their robot used its abilities to articulate words in a variety of languages, and even sing a song out of its AI-generated debut album, “hello world_.” The robot acquired this ability through observational learning rather than via rules. It first learned how to use its 26 facial motors by watching its own reflection in the mirror before learning to imitate human lip motion by watching hours of YouTube videos.</blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nhFU5KHA2fw?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://www.engineering.columbia.edu/about/news/robot-learns-lip-sync">Columbia</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div>Roborock has some odd ideas about what lawns are like.<iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/p0eXOIOZi6Y?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://newsroom.roborock.com/gl/news/ces-2026-roborock-releases-the-world-s-first-robotic-vacuum-with-wheel-leg-architecture-as-it-joins-hands-with-real-madrid-football-club-">Roborock</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="k_sjgiajhes">DEEP Robotics’ quadruped robots demonstrate coordinated multi-module operations under unified command, tackling complex and dynamic firefighting scenarios with agility and precision.</blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/K_sJGIAjhes?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://www.deeprobotics.us/">DEEP Robotics</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="njhdpouccoe">Unlike statically stable wheeled platforms, humanoids are dynamically stable, requiring continuous active control to maintain balance and prevent falls. This inherent instability presents a critical challenge for functional safety, particularly in collaborative settings. This presentation will introduce Synapticon’s POSITRON platform, a comprehensive solution engineered to address these safety-critical demands. We will explore how its integrated hardware and software enable robust, certifiable safety functions that meet the highest industrial standards, providing key insights into making the next generation of humanoid robots safe for real-world deployment.</blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/njHdPOUCcoE?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://www.synapticon.com/en/products/positron-safety">Synapticon</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div><blockquote class="rm-anchors" id="voocufteiaw">The University of California, Berkeley, is world-famous for its AI developments, and one big name behind them is <a data-linked-post="2650253755" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ken-goldberg-discusses-telerobots-androids-and-heidegger" target="_blank">Ken Goldberg</a>. Longtime professor and lifelong artist, Ken is all about deep learning while staying true to “good old-fashioned engineering.” Hear Ken talk about his approach to vision and touch for robotic surgeries and how robots will evolve across the board.</blockquote><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VooCuFTEIaw?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>[ <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCkt0hth826G9AtnOrQsPbKKD5JmdaMXb">Waymo</a> ]<div class="horizontal-rule"></div>

Jan 15, 2026

How to Gain Footing in AI as the Ground Keeps Shifting

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-young-adult-woman-working-on-her-desktop-computer-in-an-office.jpg?id=62805163&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=156%2C0%2C156%2C0"/> The newly released <a href="https://join.computer.org/ai-developer-career/?Campaign_ID=392" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Preparing for a Career as an AI Developer</a> guide from<a href="https://www.computer.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> </a>the <a href="https://www.computer.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Computer Society</a> argues that the most durable path to <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tag/artificial-intelligence" target="_self">artificial intelligence</a> jobs is not defined by mastering any single tool or model. Instead, it depends on cultivating a balanced mix of technical fundamentals and human-centered skills—capabilities that machines are unlikely to replace.AI is reshaping the job market faster than most academic programs and employers can keep up with, according to the guide. AI systems now can analyze <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tag/cybercrime" target="_self">cybercrime</a>, predict equipment failures in <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/stealthy-startup-aims-to-reinvent-ai-for-manufacturing" target="_self">manufacturing</a>, and generate text, code, and images at scale, leading to <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-jobs" target="_self">mass layoffs</a> across much of the technology sector. It has unsettled recent graduates about to enter the job market as well as early-career professionals.Yet the demand for AI expertise remains strong in the <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/discover-manager-credit-card-fraud" target="_self">banking</a>, <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/robotic-process-automation-gokul-pandy" target="_self">health care</a>, <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/abhishek-agrawal-amazon-catalog-ai" target="_self">retail</a>, and pharmaceutical industries, whose businesses are racing to deploy generative AI tools to improve productivity and decision-making—and keep up with the competition.The uneven landscape leaves many observers confused about how best to prepare for a career in a field that is redefining itself. Addressing that uncertainty is the focus of the guide, which was written by <a href="https://www.computer.org/profiles/san-murugesan" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">San Murugesan</a> and<a href="https://www.wpi.edu/people/faculty/rneamtu" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Rodica Neamtu</a>.Murugesan, an IEEE life senior member, is an adjunct professor at <a href="https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Western Sydney University</a>, in Penrith, Australia. Neamtu, an IEEE member, is a professor of teaching and a data-mining researcher at <a href="https://www.wpi.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Worcester Polytechnic Institute</a>, in Massachusetts.The downloadable 24-page PDF outlines what aspiring AI professionals should focus on, which skills are most likely to remain valuable amid rapid automation, and why AI careers are increasingly less about building algorithms in isolation and more about applying them thoughtfully across domains.The guide emphasizes adaptability as the defining requirement for entering the field, rather than fluency in any particular programming language or framework.<h2>Why AI careers are being redefined</h2>AI systems perform tasks that once required human intelligence. What distinguishes the current situation from when AI was introduced, the authors say, is not just improved performance but also expanded scope. Pattern recognition, reasoning, optimization, and machine learning are now used across nearly every sector of the economy.Although automation is expected to reduce the number of human roles in production, office support, customer service, and related fields, demand is rising for people who can design, guide, and integrate AI systems, Murugesan and Neamtu write.The guide cites surveys of executives about AI’s effect on their hiring and retention strategies, including those conducted by <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">McKinsey & Co.</a> The reports show staffing shortages in advanced IT and data analytics, as well as applicants’ insufficient critical thinking and creativity: skills that are difficult to automate.The authors frame the mismatch as an opportunity for graduates and early-career professionals to prepare strategically, focusing on capabilities that are likely to remain relevant as AI tools evolve.<h2>Developing complementary skills</h2>The strategic approach aligns with advice from <a href="https://www.csail.mit.edu/person/neil-thompson" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Neil Thompson</a>, director of FutureTech research at <a href="https://www.mit.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">MIT</a>’s <a href="https://www.csail.mit.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory</a>, who was quoted in the guide. Thompson encourages workers to develop skills that complement AI rather than compete with it.“When we see rapid technological progress like this, workers should focus on skills and occupations that apply AI to adjacent domains,” he says. “Applying AI in science, in particular, has enormous potential right now and the capacity to unlock significant benefits for humanity.”<h2>The technical foundation still matters</h2>Adaptability, the guide stresses, is not a substitute for technical rigor. A viable AI career still requires a strong foundation in data,<a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tag/machine-learning" target="_self"> machine learning</a>, and computing infrastructure.Core knowledge areas include data structures, large-scale data handling, and tools for data manipulation and analysis, the authors say.Foundational machine-learning concepts, such as supervised and unsupervised learning, neural networks, and reinforcement learning, remain essential, they say.Because many AI systems depend on scalable computing, familiarity with cloud platforms such as <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Amazon Web Services</a>,<a href="https://cloud.google.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Google Cloud</a>, and <a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/purchase-options/azure-account/search?ef_id=_k_Cj0KCQiAxonKBhC1ARIsAIHq_lubfghGwriw2ZaILxIzXBmcfubq9iMM4PqzkwhBGATSfLfbOtvCx7YaAjz5EALw_wcB_k_&OCID=AIDcmmfq865whp_SEM__k_Cj0KCQiAxonKBhC1ARIsAIHq_lubfghGwriw2ZaILxIzXBmcfubq9iMM4PqzkwhBGATSfLfbOtvCx7YaAjz5EALw_wcB_k_&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21503043035&gbraid=0AAAAADcJh_sCA_X2u0APALLSysANK0Vhk&gclid=Cj0KCQiAxonKBhC1ARIsAIHq_lubfghGwriw2ZaILxIzXBmcfubq9iMM4PqzkwhBGATSfLfbOtvCx7YaAjz5EALw_wcB" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Microsoft Azure</a> is important, according to the guide’s authors.Mathematics underpins all of it. Linear algebra, calculus, and probabilities form the basis of most AI algorithms.<a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/top-programming-languages-2025" target="_self">Python</a> has emerged as the dominant language for building and experimenting with models.<h2>From algorithms to frameworks</h2>The authors highlight the value of hands-on experience with widely used development frameworks. <a href="https://pytorch.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">PyTorch</a>, developed by <a href="https://www.meta.ai/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Meta AI</a>, is commonly used for prototyping deep-learning models in academia and industry. <a href="https://scikit-learn.org/stable/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Scikit-learn</a> provides open-source tools for classification, regression, and clustering within the Python ecosystem.“When we see rapid technological progress like this, workers should focus on skills and occupations that apply AI to adjacent domains. —Neil Thompson, MIT<a href="https://www.tensorflow.org/" target="_blank">TensorFlow</a>, a software library for machine learning and AI created by <a href="https://www.google.com/?zx=1767047914659&no_sw_cr=1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Google</a>, supports building and deploying machine-learning systems at multiple levels of abstraction.The authors emphasize that such tools matter less as résumé keywords than as vehicles for understanding how models behave within real-world constraints.<h2>Soft skills as career insurance</h2>Because AI projects often involve ambiguous problems and interdisciplinary teams, soft skills play an increasingly central role, according to the guide. Critical thinking and problem-solving are essential, but communication has become more important, the authors say. Many AI professionals must explain system behavior, limitations, and risks to nontechnical stakeholders.Neamtu describes communication and contextual thinking as timeless skills that grow more valuable as automation expands, particularly when paired with leadership, resilience, and a commitment to continuous learning.Murugesan says technical depth must be matched with the ability to collaborate and adapt.<h2>Experience before titles</h2>The guide recommends that students consider work on research projects in college, as well as paid internships, for exposure to real AI workflows and job roles with hands-on experience.Building an AI project portfolio is critical. Open-source repositories on platforms such as <a href="https://github.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">GitHub</a> allow newcomers to demonstrate applied skills including work on AI security, bias mitigation, and deepfake detection. The guide recommends staying current by reading academic papers, taking courses, and attending conferences. Doing so can help students get a solid grounding in the basics and remain relevant in a fast-moving field after beginning their career.<h2>Entry-level roles that open doors</h2>Common starting positions include AI research assistant, junior machine-learning engineer, and junior data analyst. The roles typically combine support tasks with opportunities to help develop models, preprocess data, and communicate results through reports and visualizations, according to the guide.Each starting point reinforces the guide’s central message: AI careers are built through collaboration and learning, not merely through isolated technical brilliance.<h2>Curiosity as a long-term strategy</h2>Murugesan urges aspiring AI professionals to embrace continuous learning, seek mentors, and treat mistakes as part of the learning process.“Always be curious,” he says. “Learn from failure. Mistakes and setbacks are part of the journey. Embrace them and persist.”Neamtu echoes that perspective, noting that AI is likely to affect nearly every profession, making passion for one’s work and compatibility with organizational aims more important than chasing the latest technology trend.In a field where today’s tools can become obsolete in a year, the guide’s core argument is simple: The most future-proof AI career is built not on what you know now but on how well you continue learning when things change.

Feb 9, 2022

Andrew Ng: Unbiggen AI

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/andrew-ng-listens-during-the-power-of-data-sooner-than-you-think-global-technology-conference-in-brooklyn-new-york-on-wednes.jpg?id=29206806&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C210"/> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Ng" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Andrew Ng</a> has serious street cred in artificial intelligence. He pioneered the use of graphics processing units (GPUs) to train deep learning models in the late 2000s with his students at <a href="https://stanfordmlgroup.github.io/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Stanford University</a>, cofounded <a href="https://research.google/teams/brain/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Google Brain</a> in 2011, and then served for three years as chief scientist for <a href="https://ir.baidu.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Baidu</a>, where he helped build the Chinese tech giant’s AI group. So when he says he has identified the next big shift in artificial intelligence, people listen. And that’s what he told IEEE Spectrum in an exclusive Q&A.<hr/> Ng’s current efforts are focused on his company <a href="https://landing.ai/about/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Landing AI</a>, which built a platform called LandingLens to help manufacturers improve visual inspection with computer vision. He has also become something of an evangelist for what he calls the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06-AZXmwHjo" target="_blank">data-centric AI movement</a>, which he says can yield “small data” solutions to big issues in AI, including model efficiency, accuracy, and bias. Andrew Ng on... <ul> <li><a href="#big">What’s next for really big models</a></li> <li><a href="#career">The career advice he didn’t listen to</a></li> <li><a href="#defining">Defining the data-centric AI movement</a></li> <li><a href="#synthetic">Synthetic data</a></li> <li><a href="#work">Why Landing AI asks its customers to do the work</a></li> </ul> The great advances in deep learning over the past decade or so have been powered by ever-bigger models crunching ever-bigger amounts of data. Some people argue that that’s an <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/deep-learning-computational-cost" target="_self">unsustainable trajectory</a>. Do you agree that it can’t go on that way? Andrew Ng: This is a big question. We’ve seen foundation models in NLP [natural language processing]. I’m excited about NLP models getting even bigger, and also about the potential of building foundation models in computer vision. I think there’s lots of signal to still be exploited in video: We have not been able to build foundation models yet for video because of compute bandwidth and the cost of processing video, as opposed to tokenized text. So I think that this engine of scaling up deep learning algorithms, which has been running for something like 15 years now, still has steam in it. Having said that, it only applies to certain problems, and there’s a set of other problems that need small data solutions. When you say you want a foundation model for computer vision, what do you mean by that? Ng: This is a term coined by <a href="https://cs.stanford.edu/~pliang/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Percy Liang</a> and <a href="https://crfm.stanford.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">some of my friends at Stanford</a> to refer to very large models, trained on very large data sets, that can be tuned for specific applications. For example, <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/open-ais-powerful-text-generating-tool-is-ready-for-business" target="_self">GPT-3</a> is an example of a foundation model [for NLP]. Foundation models offer a lot of promise as a new paradigm in developing machine learning applications, but also challenges in terms of making sure that they’re reasonably fair and free from bias, especially if many of us will be building on top of them. What needs to happen for someone to build a foundation model for video? Ng: I think there is a scalability problem. The compute power needed to process the large volume of images for video is significant, and I think that’s why foundation models have arisen first in NLP. Many researchers are working on this, and I think we’re seeing early signs of such models being developed in computer vision. But I’m confident that if a semiconductor maker gave us 10 times more processor power, we could easily find 10 times more video to build such models for vision. Having said that, a lot of what’s happened over the past decade is that deep learning has happened in consumer-facing companies that have large user bases, sometimes billions of users, and therefore very large data sets. While that paradigm of machine learning has driven a lot of economic value in consumer software, I find that that recipe of scale doesn’t work for other industries. <a href="#top">Back to top</a> It’s funny to hear you say that, because your early work was at a consumer-facing company with millions of users. Ng: Over a decade ago, when I proposed starting the <a href="https://research.google/teams/brain/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Google Brain</a> project to use Google’s compute infrastructure to build very large neural networks, it was a controversial step. One very senior person pulled me aside and warned me that starting Google Brain would be bad for my career. I think he felt that the action couldn’t just be in scaling up, and that I should instead focus on architecture innovation. “In many industries where giant data sets simply don’t exist, I think the focus has to shift from big data to good data. Having 50 thoughtfully engineered examples can be sufficient to explain to the neural network what you want it to learn.” —Andrew Ng, CEO & Founder, Landing AI I remember when my students and I published the first <a href="https://nips.cc/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">NeurIPS</a> workshop paper advocating using <a href="https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-zone" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">CUDA</a>, a platform for processing on GPUs, for deep learning—a different senior person in AI sat me down and said, “CUDA is really complicated to program. As a programming paradigm, this seems like too much work.” I did manage to convince him; the other person I did not convince. I expect they’re both convinced now. Ng: I think so, yes. Over the past year as I’ve been speaking to people about the data-centric AI movement, I’ve been getting flashbacks to when I was speaking to people about deep learning and scalability 10 or 15 years ago. In the past year, I’ve been getting the same mix of “there’s nothing new here” and “this seems like the wrong direction.” <a href="#top">Back to top</a> How do you define data-centric AI, and why do you consider it a movement? Ng: Data-centric AI is the discipline of systematically engineering the data needed to successfully build an AI system. For an AI system, you have to implement some algorithm, say a neural network, in code and then train it on your data set. The dominant paradigm over the last decade was to download the data set while you focus on improving the code. Thanks to that paradigm, over the last decade deep learning networks have improved significantly, to the point where for a lot of applications the code—the neural network architecture—is basically a solved problem. So for many practical applications, it’s now more productive to hold the neural network architecture fixed, and instead find ways to improve the data. When I started speaking about this, there were many practitioners who, completely appropriately, raised their hands and said, “Yes, we’ve been doing this for 20 years.” This is the time to take the things that some individuals have been doing intuitively and make it a systematic engineering discipline. The data-centric AI movement is much bigger than one company or group of researchers. My collaborators and I organized a <a href="https://neurips.cc/virtual/2021/workshop/21860" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">data-centric AI workshop at NeurIPS</a>, and I was really delighted at the number of authors and presenters that showed up. You often talk about companies or institutions that have only a small amount of data to work with. How can data-centric AI help them? Ng: You hear a lot about vision systems built with millions of images—I once built a face recognition system using 350 million images. Architectures built for hundreds of millions of images don’t work with only 50 images. But it turns out, if you have 50 really good examples, you can build something valuable, like a defect-inspection system. In many industries where giant data sets simply don’t exist, I think the focus has to shift from big data to good data. Having 50 thoughtfully engineered examples can be sufficient to explain to the neural network what you want it to learn. When you talk about training a model with just 50 images, does that really mean you’re taking an existing model that was trained on a very large data set and fine-tuning it? Or do you mean a brand new model that’s designed to learn only from that small data set? Ng: Let me describe what Landing AI does. When doing visual inspection for manufacturers, we often use our own flavor of <a href="https://developers.arcgis.com/python/guide/how-retinanet-works/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">RetinaNet</a>. It is a pretrained model. Having said that, the pretraining is a small piece of the puzzle. What’s a bigger piece of the puzzle is providing tools that enable the manufacturer to pick the right set of images [to use for fine-tuning] and label them in a consistent way. There’s a very practical problem we’ve seen spanning vision, NLP, and speech, where even human annotators don’t agree on the appropriate label. For big data applications, the common response has been: If the data is noisy, let’s just get a lot of data and the algorithm will average over it. But if you can develop tools that flag where the data’s inconsistent and give you a very targeted way to improve the consistency of the data, that turns out to be a more efficient way to get a high-performing system. “Collecting more data often helps, but if you try to collect more data for everything, that can be a very expensive activity.” —Andrew Ng For example, if you have 10,000 images where 30 images are of one class, and those 30 images are labeled inconsistently, one of the things we do is build tools to draw your attention to the subset of data that’s inconsistent. So you can very quickly relabel those images to be more consistent, and this leads to improvement in performance. Could this focus on high-quality data help with bias in data sets? If you’re able to curate the data more before training? Ng: Very much so. Many researchers have pointed out that biased data is one factor among many leading to biased systems. There have been many thoughtful efforts to engineer the data. At the NeurIPS workshop, <a href="https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~olgarus/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Olga Russakovsky</a> gave a really nice talk on this. At the main NeurIPS conference, I also really enjoyed <a href="https://neurips.cc/virtual/2021/invited-talk/22281" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Mary Gray’s presentation,</a> which touched on how data-centric AI is one piece of the solution, but not the entire solution. New tools like <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/datasheets-for-datasets/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Datasheets for Datasets</a> also seem like an important piece of the puzzle. One of the powerful tools that data-centric AI gives us is the ability to engineer a subset of the data. Imagine training a machine-learning system and finding that its performance is okay for most of the data set, but its performance is biased for just a subset of the data. If you try to change the whole neural network architecture to improve the performance on just that subset, it’s quite difficult. But if you can engineer a subset of the data you can address the problem in a much more targeted way. When you talk about engineering the data, what do you mean exactly? Ng: In AI, data cleaning is important, but the way the data has been cleaned has often been in very manual ways. In computer vision, someone may visualize images through a <a href="https://jupyter.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Jupyter notebook</a> and maybe spot the problem, and maybe fix it. But I’m excited about tools that allow you to have a very large data set, tools that draw your attention quickly and efficiently to the subset of data where, say, the labels are noisy. Or to quickly bring your attention to the one class among 100 classes where it would benefit you to collect more data. Collecting more data often helps, but if you try to collect more data for everything, that can be a very expensive activity. For example, I once figured out that a speech-recognition system was performing poorly when there was car noise in the background. Knowing that allowed me to collect more data with car noise in the background, rather than trying to collect more data for everything, which would have been expensive and slow. <a href="#top">Back to top</a> What about using synthetic data, is that often a good solution? Ng: I think synthetic data is an important tool in the tool chest of data-centric AI. At the NeurIPS workshop, <a href="https://tensorlab.cms.caltech.edu/users/anima/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Anima Anandkumar</a> gave a great talk that touched on synthetic data. I think there are important uses of synthetic data that go beyond just being a preprocessing step for increasing the data set for a learning algorithm. I’d love to see more tools to let developers use synthetic data generation as part of the closed loop of iterative machine learning development. Do you mean that synthetic data would allow you to try the model on more data sets? Ng: Not really. Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re trying to detect defects in a smartphone casing. There are many different types of defects on smartphones. It could be a scratch, a dent, pit marks, discoloration of the material, other types of blemishes. If you train the model and then find through error analysis that it’s doing well overall but it’s performing poorly on pit marks, then synthetic data generation allows you to address the problem in a more targeted way. You could generate more data just for the pit-mark category. “In the consumer software Internet, we could train a handful of machine-learning models to serve a billion users. In manufacturing, you might have 10,000 manufacturers building 10,000 custom AI models.” —Andrew Ng Synthetic data generation is a very powerful tool, but there are many simpler tools that I will often try first. Such as data augmentation, improving labeling consistency, or just asking a factory to collect more data. <a href="#top">Back to top</a> To make these issues more concrete, can you walk me through an example? When a company approaches <a href="https://landing.ai/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Landing AI</a> and says it has a problem with visual inspection, how do you onboard them and work toward deployment? Ng: When a customer approaches us we usually have a conversation about their inspection problem and look at a few images to verify that the problem is feasible with computer vision. Assuming it is, we ask them to upload the data to the <a href="https://landing.ai/platform/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">LandingLens</a> platform. We often advise them on the methodology of data-centric AI and help them label the data. One of the foci of Landing AI is to empower manufacturing companies to do the machine learning work themselves. A lot of our work is making sure the software is fast and easy to use. Through the iterative process of machine learning development, we advise customers on things like how to train models on the platform, when and how to improve the labeling of data so the performance of the model improves. Our training and software supports them all the way through deploying the trained model to an edge device in the factory. How do you deal with changing needs? If products change or lighting conditions change in the factory, can the model keep up? Ng: It varies by manufacturer. There is data drift in many contexts. But there are some manufacturers that have been running the same manufacturing line for 20 years now with few changes, so they don’t expect changes in the next five years. Those stable environments make things easier. For other manufacturers, we provide tools to flag when there’s a significant data-drift issue. I find it really important to empower manufacturing customers to correct data, retrain, and update the model. Because if something changes and it’s 3 a.m. in the United States, I want them to be able to adapt their learning algorithm right away to maintain operations. In the consumer software Internet, we could train a handful of machine-learning models to serve a billion users. In manufacturing, you might have 10,000 manufacturers building 10,000 custom AI models. The challenge is, how do you do that without Landing AI having to hire 10,000 machine learning specialists? So you’re saying that to make it scale, you have to empower customers to do a lot of the training and other work. Ng: Yes, exactly! This is an industry-wide problem in AI, not just in manufacturing. Look at health care. Every hospital has its own slightly different format for electronic health records. How can every hospital train its own custom AI model? Expecting every hospital’s IT personnel to invent new neural-network architectures is unrealistic. The only way out of this dilemma is to build tools that empower the customers to build their own models by giving them tools to engineer the data and express their domain knowledge. That’s what Landing AI is executing in computer vision, and the field of AI needs other teams to execute this in other domains. Is there anything else you think it’s important for people to understand about the work you’re doing or the data-centric AI movement? Ng: In the last decade, the biggest shift in AI was a shift to deep learning. I think it’s quite possible that in this decade the biggest shift will be to data-centric AI. With the maturity of today’s neural network architectures, I think for a lot of the practical applications the bottleneck will be whether we can efficiently get the data we need to develop systems that work well. The data-centric AI movement has tremendous energy and momentum across the whole community. I hope more researchers and developers will jump in and work on it. <a href="#top">Back to top</a> This article appears in the April 2022 print issue as “Andrew Ng, AI Minimalist.”

Feb 8, 2022

How AI Will Change Chip Design

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/layered-rendering-of-colorful-semiconductor-wafers-with-a-bright-white-light-sitting-on-one.jpg?id=29285079&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0"/> The end of <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/on-beyond-moores-law-4-new-laws-of-computing" target="_self">Moore’s Law</a> is looming. Engineers and designers can do only so much to <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ibm-introduces-the-worlds-first-2nm-node-chip" target="_self">miniaturize transistors</a> and <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/cerebras-giant-ai-chip-now-has-a-trillions-more-transistors" target="_self">pack as many of them as possible into chips</a>. So they’re turning to other approaches to chip design, incorporating technologies like AI into the process.Samsung, for instance, is <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/processing-in-dram-accelerates-ai" target="_self">adding AI to its memory chips</a> to enable processing in memory, thereby saving energy and speeding up machine learning. Speaking of speed, Google’s TPU V4 AI chip has <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/heres-how-googles-tpu-v4-ai-chip-stacked-up-in-training-tests" target="_self">doubled its processing power</a> compared with that of its previous version.But AI holds still more promise and potential for the semiconductor industry. To better understand how AI is set to revolutionize chip design, we spoke with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-gorr-phd" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Heather Gorr</a>, senior product manager for <a href="https://www.mathworks.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">MathWorks</a>’ MATLAB platform.How is AI currently being used to design the next generation of chips?Heather Gorr: AI is such an important technology because it’s involved in most parts of the cycle, including the design and manufacturing process. There’s a lot of important applications here, even in the general process engineering where we want to optimize things. I think defect detection is a big one at all phases of the process, especially in manufacturing. But even thinking ahead in the design process, [AI now plays a significant role] when you’re designing the light and the sensors and all the different components. There’s a lot of anomaly detection and fault mitigation that you really want to consider. <img alt="Portrait of a woman with blonde-red hair smiling at the camera" class="rm-shortcode rm-resized-image" data-rm-shortcode-id="1f18a02ccaf51f5c766af2ebc4af18e1" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="2dc00" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/portrait-of-a-woman-with-blonde-red-hair-smiling-at-the-camera.jpg?id=29288554&width=980" style="max-width: 100%"/> Heather GorrMathWorksThen, thinking about the logistical modeling that you see in any industry, there is always planned downtime that you want to mitigate; but you also end up having unplanned downtime. So, looking back at that historical data of when you’ve had those moments where maybe it took a bit longer than expected to manufacture something, you can take a look at all of that data and use AI to try to identify the proximate cause or to see something that might jump out even in the processing and design phases. We think of AI oftentimes as a predictive tool, or as a robot doing something, but a lot of times you get a lot of insight from the data through AI.What are the benefits of using AI for chip design?Gorr: Historically, we’ve seen a lot of physics-based modeling, which is a very intensive process. We want to do a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_order_reduction" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reduced order model</a>, where instead of solving such a computationally expensive and extensive model, we can do something a little cheaper. You could create a surrogate model, so to speak, of that physics-based model, use the data, and then do your <a href="https://institutefordiseasemodeling.github.io/idmtools/parameter-sweeps.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">parameter sweeps</a>, your optimizations, your <a href="https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/monte-carlo-simulation" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Monte Carlo simulations</a> using the surrogate model. That takes a lot less time computationally than solving the physics-based equations directly. So, we’re seeing that benefit in many ways, including the efficiency and economy that are the results of iterating quickly on the experiments and the simulations that will really help in the design.So it’s like having a digital twin in a sense?Gorr: Exactly. That’s pretty much what people are doing, where you have the physical system model and the experimental data. Then, in conjunction, you have this other model that you could tweak and tune and try different parameters and experiments that let sweep through all of those different situations and come up with a better design in the end.So, it’s going to be more efficient and, as you said, cheaper?Gorr: Yeah, definitely. Especially in the experimentation and design phases, where you’re trying different things. That’s obviously going to yield dramatic cost savings if you’re actually manufacturing and producing [the chips]. You want to simulate, test, experiment as much as possible without making something using the actual process engineering.We’ve talked about the benefits. How about the drawbacks?Gorr: The [AI-based experimental models] tend to not be as accurate as physics-based models. Of course, that’s why you do many simulations and parameter sweeps. But that’s also the benefit of having that digital twin, where you can keep that in mind—it’s not going to be as accurate as that precise model that we’ve developed over the years.Both chip design and manufacturing are system intensive; you have to consider every little part. And that can be really challenging. It’s a case where you might have models to predict something and different parts of it, but you still need to bring it all together.One of the other things to think about too is that you need the data to build the models. You have to incorporate data from all sorts of different sensors and different sorts of teams, and so that heightens the challenge.How can engineers use AI to better prepare and extract insights from hardware or sensor data?Gorr: We always think about using AI to predict something or do some robot task, but you can use AI to come up with patterns and pick out things you might not have noticed before on your own. People will use AI when they have high-frequency data coming from many different sensors, and a lot of times it’s useful to explore the frequency domain and things like data synchronization or resampling. Those can be really challenging if you’re not sure where to start.One of the things I would say is, use the tools that are available. There’s a vast community of people working on these things, and you can find lots of examples [of applications and techniques] on <a href="https://github.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">GitHub</a> or <a href="https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">MATLAB Central</a>, where people have shared nice examples, even little apps they’ve created. I think many of us are buried in data and just not sure what to do with it, so definitely take advantage of what’s already out there in the community. You can explore and see what makes sense to you, and bring in that balance of domain knowledge and the insight you get from the tools and AI.What should engineers and designers consider when using AI for chip design?Gorr: Think through what problems you’re trying to solve or what insights you might hope to find, and try to be clear about that. Consider all of the different components, and document and test each of those different parts. Consider all of the people involved, and explain and hand off in a way that is sensible for the whole team.How do you think AI will affect chip designers’ jobs?Gorr: It’s going to free up a lot of human capital for more advanced tasks. We can use AI to reduce waste, to optimize the materials, to optimize the design, but then you still have that human involved whenever it comes to decision-making. I think it’s a great example of people and technology working hand in hand. It’s also an industry where all people involved—even on the manufacturing floor—need to have some level of understanding of what’s happening, so this is a great industry for advancing AI because of how we test things and how we think about them before we put them on the chip.How do you envision the future of AI and chip design?Gorr: It’s very much dependent on that human element—involving people in the process and having that interpretable model. We can do many things with the mathematical minutiae of modeling, but it comes down to how people are using it, how everybody in the process is understanding and applying it. Communication and involvement of people of all skill levels in the process are going to be really important. We’re going to see less of those superprecise predictions and more transparency of information, sharing, and that digital twin—not only using AI but also using our human knowledge and all of the work that many people have done over the years.

Feb 7, 2022

Atomically Thin Materials Significantly Shrink Qubits

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-golden-square-package-holds-a-small-processor-sitting-on-top-is-a-metal-square-with-mit-etched-into-it.jpg?id=29281587&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0"/> Quantum computing is a devilishly complex technology, with many technical hurdles impacting its development. Of these challenges two critical issues stand out: miniaturization and qubit quality.IBM has adopted the superconducting qubit road map of <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ibms-envisons-the-road-to-quantum-computing-like-an-apollo-mission" target="_self">reaching a 1,121-qubit processor by 2023</a>, leading to the expectation that 1,000 qubits with today’s qubit form factor is feasible. However, current approaches will require very large chips (50 millimeters on a side, or larger) at the scale of small wafers, or the use of chiplets on multichip modules. While this approach will work, the aim is to attain a better path toward scalability.Now researchers at <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41563-021-01187-w" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">MIT have been able to both reduce the size of the qubits</a> and done so in a way that reduces the interference that occurs between neighboring qubits. The MIT researchers have increased the number of superconducting qubits that can be added onto a device by a factor of 100.“We are addressing both qubit miniaturization and quality,” said <a href="https://equs.mit.edu/william-d-oliver/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">William Oliver</a>, the director for the <a href="https://cqe.mit.edu/" target="_blank">Center for Quantum Engineering</a> at MIT. “Unlike conventional transistor scaling, where only the number really matters, for qubits, large numbers are not sufficient, they must also be high-performance. Sacrificing performance for qubit number is not a useful trade in quantum computing. They must go hand in hand.”The key to this big increase in qubit density and reduction of interference comes down to the use of two-dimensional materials, in particular the 2D insulator hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). The MIT researchers demonstrated that a few atomic monolayers of hBN can be stacked to form the insulator in the capacitors of a superconducting qubit.Just like other capacitors, the capacitors in these superconducting circuits take the form of a sandwich in which an insulator material is sandwiched between two metal plates. The big difference for these capacitors is that the superconducting circuits can operate only at extremely low temperatures—less than 0.02 degrees above absolute zero (-273.15 °C). <img alt="Golden dilution refrigerator hanging vertically" class="rm-shortcode rm-resized-image" data-rm-shortcode-id="694399af8a1c345e51a695ff73909eda" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="6c615" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/golden-dilution-refrigerator-hanging-vertically.jpg?id=29281593&width=980" style="max-width: 100%"/> Superconducting qubits are measured at temperatures as low as 20 millikelvin in a dilution refrigerator.Nathan Fiske/MITIn that environment, insulating materials that are available for the job, such as PE-CVD silicon oxide or silicon nitride, have quite a few defects that are too lossy for quantum computing applications. To get around these material shortcomings, most superconducting circuits use what are called coplanar capacitors. In these capacitors, the plates are positioned laterally to one another, rather than on top of one another.As a result, the intrinsic silicon substrate below the plates and to a smaller degree the vacuum above the plates serve as the capacitor dielectric. Intrinsic silicon is chemically pure and therefore has few defects, and the large size dilutes the electric field at the plate interfaces, all of which leads to a low-loss capacitor. The lateral size of each plate in this open-face design ends up being quite large (typically 100 by 100 micrometers) in order to achieve the required capacitance.In an effort to move away from the large lateral configuration, the MIT researchers embarked on a search for an insulator that has very few defects and is compatible with superconducting capacitor plates.“We chose to study hBN because it is the most widely used insulator in 2D material research due to its cleanliness and chemical inertness,” said colead author <a href="https://equs.mit.edu/joel-wang/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Joel Wang</a>, a research scientist in the Engineering Quantum Systems group of the MIT Research Laboratory for Electronics. On either side of the hBN, the MIT researchers used the 2D superconducting material, niobium diselenide. One of the trickiest aspects of fabricating the capacitors was working with the niobium diselenide, which oxidizes in seconds when exposed to air, according to Wang. This necessitates that the assembly of the capacitor occur in a glove box filled with argon gas.While this would seemingly complicate the scaling up of the production of these capacitors, Wang doesn’t regard this as a limiting factor.“What determines the quality factor of the capacitor are the two interfaces between the two materials,” said Wang. “Once the sandwich is made, the two interfaces are “sealed” and we don’t see any noticeable degradation over time when exposed to the atmosphere.”This lack of degradation is because around 90 percent of the electric field is contained within the sandwich structure, so the oxidation of the outer surface of the niobium diselenide does not play a significant role anymore. This ultimately makes the capacitor footprint much smaller, and it accounts for the reduction in cross talk between the neighboring qubits.“The main challenge for scaling up the fabrication will be the wafer-scale growth of hBN and 2D superconductors like [niobium diselenide], and how one can do wafer-scale stacking of these films,” added Wang.Wang believes that this research has shown 2D hBN to be a good insulator candidate for superconducting qubits. He says that the groundwork the MIT team has done will serve as a road map for using other hybrid 2D materials to build superconducting circuits.

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A Higher-End Pico-Based Oscilloscope

<div><img width="800" height="450" src="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/picotronix_oscilloscope.png?w=800" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="A set of three stacked oscilloscopes is shown. The lower two oscilloscopes have screens and input pins visible, and the top oscilloscope is reversed, with a printed back plate visible." style="margin: 0 auto; margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/picotronix_oscilloscope.png 1319w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/picotronix_oscilloscope.png?resize=250,141 250w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/picotronix_oscilloscope.png?resize=400,225 400w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/picotronix_oscilloscope.png?resize=800,450 800w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" data-attachment-id="914625" data-permalink="https://hackaday.com/2026/02/02/a-higher-end-pico-based-oscilloscope/picotronix_oscilloscope/" data-orig-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/picotronix_oscilloscope.png" data-orig-size="1319,742" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="picotronix_oscilloscope" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/picotronix_oscilloscope.png?w=400" data-large-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/picotronix_oscilloscope.png?w=800" /></div>Hackers have been building their own basic oscilloscopes out of inexpensive MCUs and cheap LCD screens for some years now, but microcontrollers have recently become fast enough to actually make <a href="https://hackaday.com/2026/02/02/a-higher-end-pico-based-oscilloscope/" class="read-more">…read more</a>

Feb 2, 2026

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Feb 2, 2026

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Feb 2, 2026

Running DOOM and Super Mario 64 Inside a PDF File

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An Event Badge Re-Imagined As A Cyberdeck