Hardware

When it comes to e-paper devices, the Kindle is of course the first brand people think of, though I’ve done my best to spread the Kobo and reMarkable gospel as well. Chinese e-reader maker Boox is a relatively new entrant to the space, and its devices are experimental but useful options in th

“Voice skins” have become a very popular feature for AI-based voice assistants, to help personalize some of the more anodyne aspects of helpful, yet also kind of bland and robotic, speaking voices you get on services like Alexa. Now a startup that is building voice skins for different companies

Kanye (or “Ye,” as it were) is going all out in the promotion of his upcoming tenth studio album, “Donda” (named for his late-mother, Donda West). In July, there was a massive listening party at Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium (where he also took up residence in a locker room).

Canalys released its quarterly U.S. PC sales today, and while the news was quite good with sales overall up 17% YoY, the growth slowed significantly from the prior quarter when sales soared to 74% pushed by the pandemic. Perhaps that is also due the widely reported worldwide chip shortage. HP retai

In a blog post this morning, Alphabet drone delivery company Wing announced that it is set to hit 100,000 customer deliveries over the weekend. The news comes on the second anniversary of the service's pilot launch in Logan, Australia, a city of roughly 300,000 people in the Brisbane metropolit

Fitness band market share is undoubtedly contracting, thanks in no small part to the massive popularity of smartwatches. But 13.1 million overall shipments in Q1 2021 is nothing to sneeze at. People are still buying non-watch fitness trackers, due to their lower price and non-invasiveness. Announce

Following its announcement late last month, Facebook's new 128GB model of the Oculus Quest 2 is now available to buy. You can purchase the VR headset from the company's website for the same $299 price as the previous 64GB base model. “Long story short? We've created this 128GB model s

During a banner year for connected fitness, Peloton stumbled, as its two treadmills — the Tread+ and Tread — drew the scrutiny of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). The two eventually collaborated for the planned recall of 125,000 Tread+ units, while offering fixes to 6

I took a long walk on Saturday. It's become a routine during the pandemic, a chance to unwind after too many hours indoors, while seeing parts of the city that would otherwise be lost to subway rides in normal years. Saturday was more purpose-driven, heading to a newly opened Trader Joe's b

Samsung wasn't quite ready to declare the Galaxy Note dead. Not just yet. When we put the question to the company again after this month's Unpacked event, a rep told us: Samsung is constantly evaluating its product lineup to ensure we meet the needs of consumers, while introducing technolog

For smartwatches, it's Apple against the world. Per recent numbers from CounterPoint, the Apple Watch commanded more than one-third of global shipments in Q1. Samsung/Tizen's own market share is a distant — but respectable — second place, with 8%. With Google's Wear OS at fi

Facebook’s journey toward making virtual reality a thing has been long and circuitous, but despite mixed success in finding a wide audience for VR, they have managed to build some very nice hardware along the way. What’s fairly ironic is that while Facebook has managed to succeed in fin

It's no secret that Google is in the midst of a pretty massive overhaul of its Pixel division. The Pixel 6 offers the next major Hail Mary for the company's hardware division, complete with its own custom chip, Tensor. This is not that. The new flagship won't be available until the fall

Some Bluetooth bugginess and questionable mic performance aside, I liked the NuraTrue quite a bit. And obviously, I'm always in favor of smaller companies mixing it up with tech giants, while bringing something unique to the process. In Nura's case, that thing is custom sound profiles that