Owners of Spotify's soon-to-be-bricked Car Thing device are begging the company to open source the gadgets to save some the landfill. Spotify hasn't responded to pleas to salvage the hardware, which was originally intended to connect to car dashboards and auxiliary outlets to enable drivers to listen to and navigate …
Read More »Biden’s New Import Rules Will Hit Ebike Batteries Too
Last week, the Biden administration announced it would levy dramatic new tariffs on electric vehicles, electric vehicle batteries, and battery components imported into the United States from China. The move kicked off another round of global debate on how best to push the transportation industry toward an emissions-free future, and …
Read More »Kia’s New EV3 Electric SUV Goes Up to 372 Miles on a Charge
The South Korean automaker Kia has a brand-new electric compact SUV on the way. The Kia EV3 is the fourth of the brand's EV models, a high-range SUV that slots into Kia’s lineup below the flagship Kia EV9. No starting price has been announced for the EV3 just yet, but …
Read More »Adobe Adds an AI-Powered Eraser to Lightroom
Photo bombing is dead. Adobe is adding an artificial-intelligence-powered Generative Remove feature to its Lightroom photo editor that makes it dead simple to zap out unwanted elements, like that annoying guy in the background. The new feature is in a public beta-testing phase, but it will work across the Lightroom …
Read More »Sonos Finally Has Headphones and We’re Excited
It’s true that “before the pandemic” is a hazy time, an era in which it’s difficult to pin down chronology with any certainty. So while the rumors of Sonos headphones definitely began before the pandemic, who knows exactly how long we’ve been waiting for them? Four years? Ten? That’s all …
Read More »Everything Microsoft Announced at Today’s Surface Event
Microsoft's Surface laptops have been underwhelming us in the past few years—they haven't changed drastically since the original launch in 2017. But on the heels of Microsoft Build, the company's annual developer conference, Microsoft finally injected some life into its hardware platform today with a media-only launch event—that wasn't livestreamed—at …
Read More »The End of ‘iPhone’
Last week's launch of more powerful iPads shows that, for now—and for this line of products at least—Apple is sticking with its long-in-the-tooth “i” prefix. But how much time remains for this dotted relic of the Steve Jobs era, a lower-case vestigial tail with little modern relevance? Not much time …
Read More »Apple Makes It Easier to Stare at Your Phone in the Car
You’ve been there, sitting in the passenger seat of a car, trying to focus intently on your phone as a way to ignore all your karaoke-belting seatmates. And then there’s a lurch, or a buildup of motion that causes a swirl of unease in your gut. What you’re feeling is …
Read More »The 21 Top New Android 15 Features
The next version of Google’s mobile operating system—Android 15—is finally here with a host of new features and improvements. Google promises productivity enhancements, better privacy and security, and smoother performance. There are also upgrades for foldable and larger-screen devices. Android 15 is rolling out to supported devices starting today. We …
Read More »All the New Features Coming to Android Phones, Watches, and TVs This Year
Google’s second day of its I/O developer conference focuses on updates to its Android ecosystem. The company recently consolidated all of its hardware teams—Pixel devices—with its Android platforms, which include anything and everything powered by Android (plus Chrome OS). Naturally, today’s announcements touch on every part of that ecosystem, from …
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