Hardware

China is one of the world's wealthiest digital economies today, with a hardware supply chain that is unrivaled and a panoply of prominent and massively profitable companies like Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance taking a leading role in the world. Yet, all of this cutting-edge innovation rests on

“It is great that MWC is back,” Samsung UK's James Kitto said, opening up this year's presser. “And behalf of everyone at Samsung, it's great to be back at MWC.” What, precisely, it means to be “back” in 2021 is another question entirely. Samsung was, of course, one of a num

Jio Platforms, run by India's richest man (Mukesh Ambani), and Google on Thursday unveiled the JioPhone Next, an affordable Android smartphone, as the top Indian telecom operator and the American giant make further push to expand their reach in the world’s second-largest internet market.

Facebook’s efforts to bring advertising to the Oculus virtual reality platform it has spent billions of dollars building out doesn’t seem to be off to a great start. The company announced last week that they were planning to roll out their first in-game ads inside the title “Blast

There have been plenty of pop-ups over the years, but tomorrow Google's first store opens in NYC’s Chelsea neighborhood. The brick-and-mortar model finds the company joining peers like Apple, Microsoft, Samsung and even Amazon, all of whom have a retail presence in Manhattan, including se

Nintendo defied expectations today with an E3-timed Direct showing off not the hoped-for new Switch hardware but a dozen or so new games — as well as a general release window for the much-anticipated next Zelda game. And to celebrate the original’s 35th anniversary, it will sell a new Game

Last week word got out that Facebook was taking another big step into first-party hardware with the planned launch of its own smartwatch. The most intriguing part of the report was the inclusion of not one but two cameras. Other wearable makers have flirted with video and images on wrist-worn devic

Following a smattering of leaks, Sonos and Ikea just unveiled the newest addition to their three-year-old Symfonisk line of home speakers. As the name implies, the Picture Frame is a medium-size, flat-panel speaker that can either be mounted on a wall or set on a shelf via kickstand. As with the re

When they were released in 2019, Powerbeats Pro were standouts. Two-plus years later, they remain one of the more well-rounded wireless earbuds on the market. There are things I would change, of course. Even in 2019, that charging case was ridiculously large. In 2021, the original case is all the m

When I joined the team at SOSV's HAX, a venture program designed to help early-stage hardware founders, my friends in tech shook their heads. Hadn't I learned yet that hardware is too hard? What they didn't see was a hardware scene evolving rapidly in contrast to its glacial reputation.

It's been just under two years since I reviewed the WF-1000XM3, and in that time, Sony's earbuds never stopped being the reference point for high-end earbuds. Seriously, I reviewed a new pair like a month ago and still made the customary reference. That's a rarity in these days of the y

Ring gets a lot of criticism, not just for its massive surveillance network of home video doorbells and its problematic privacy and security practices, but also for giving that doorbell footage to law enforcement. While Ring is making moves toward transparency, the company refuses to disclose how m

Playdate, app and game designer Panic’s first shot at hardware, finally has a firm price and ship date, as well as a bunch of surprise features cooked up since its announcement in 2019. The tiny handheld gaming console will cost $179, ship later this year and come with a 24-game “season

It's been two years since Sony raised the bar for wireless earbuds. Six months before Apple upped its own game with the AirPods Pro, the WF-1000XM3 set a new standard for sound and active noise cancelation. Since then, few companies have been able to match — let alone surpass — thei