Hardware

Garmin is the latest company to give its users the ability to take an ECG reading from their wrist. The company is launching a new ECG app that allows users to record their heart rhythm and check for signs of atrial fibrillation (AFib), Garmin announced on Tuesday. The app, which is the companyR

Automating construction makes plain sense on the face of it. It's one of the world's biggest industries. It's also among the most expensive and, often, dangerous. Certainly it checks off the three Ds (dull, dirty, dangerous) of automation quite plainly. We encountered Kewazo several yea

The M2 Air is as close as Apple has ever come to the perfect MacBook. It's a kind of platonic ideal for the category, and the culmination of key updates to the product line, including the arrival (and upgrade) of Apple silicon and the company's acceptance that some things (bad keyboards, To

I managed to squeeze the remaining vestiges out of CES 2023 in last week's Actuator. The good news is that things are starting to pick up again like clockwork. If you've emailed me about work stuff in the past week, I apologize for the delay — I’ve been out of one frying pan and int

Predicting spending is a tricky business, especially in a period of economic uncertainty. Perhaps that's why both IDC and Gartner have cut their fall predictions in the new year, with Gartner now predicting modest 2.2% growth for 2023, with IDC a bit more optimistic at 4.4%. In the fall, Gartne

Ditching HomePod was a strange choice. At the time, Apple told us, “HomePod mini has been a hit since its debut last fall, offering customers amazing sound, an intelligent assistant, and smart home control all for just $99. We are focusing our efforts on HomePod mini.” While the smart home hasn

One of these days I'll have some positive news to share about the global smartphone market. Today is not that day. The industry capped off another dismal year with a 17% year over year drop for Q4. That number puts the full year's shipping figures 11% below 2021, per new numbers from Canaly

Back in 2017, Wyze made a name for itself with the launch of its original $20 security camera. Over the years, it released its fair share of iterations of the Wyze Cam, with version 3 launching in 2020. Today, it’s launching both a new iteration of the original Wyze Cam, dubbed the Wyze Cam O

One of two things likely happened here. Either Apple made a proper video before deciding this wasn't quite enough to justify a proper “event,” or this is just how the company is going to treat smaller announcements, going forward. Given the number of Apple rumors swirling around at the mome

""> ""> ""> Apple just dropped a refresh to the Mac Mini. The new version of the compact desktop arrives with a choice of last year's M2 chip, or the freshly arrived M2 Pro. The system received a major refresh back in 2020, with the arrival of the first M1 chip. In his review, Matt called the sy

I vividly remember my first Vive experience. It was many CESes ago. I was managing a different site. Budgets were tight and I had the most on-the-ground experience, so I went solo. I had a different kind of fire back then, writing 100 stories over five days and walking every possible inch of the sh

It's a strange week. Strange and strangely familiar. You stay at the same hotel in a nearly identical room to the one you stayed in for the last 10 years or so. You see friends and colleagues you've not seen in a while. Everyone is three years older and a bit worse for wear. A global pandem

When you look at fourth-quarter worldwide PC sales data from Canalys, IDC and Gartner, it's fair to say that the news was not great, with all three firms seeing precipitous declines from 2021 highs. In fact, the numbers plunged for the fourth consecutive quarter, with sales falling 28% accordin

This was the CES of putting things on my face. I spent time with the Magic Leap 2, Meta Quest Pro, Vive XR Elite and PSVR2 over the course of a few days. All of those products fit in the same bucket, more or less. And then there's the Dyson Zone, a product that, quite frankly, doesn't fit i