Gadgets

A couple of days after Microsoft unveiled a ton of info about the Xbox Series X, Sony is about to do the exact same thing in a live video. Sony is hosting a live broadcast about the PlayStation 5 today at 9 AM PT, 12 PM ET, 4 PM GMT. [embedded content] Lead system architect

Apple today announced the Mac Mini will ship with more standard storage space. Starting at $799, the base model Mac Mini now ships with a 256GB SSD, up from 128GB previously. The CPU, GPU and system memory remains the same from the previous model. This refresh is a slight but welcomed bump to Apple’s least

Smart rings are still a relatively young category in the wearable hardware world, but the Oura Ring seems to be a standout in terms of early success. The Oura Ring hardware is sleek and packed with sensors, allowing it to measure a user’s sleep patterns, take your body temperature and track activity, and now Oura

Apple appears to be expecting a longer disruption to shopping at its physical retail stores as a result of the public health crisis posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier this week, in a press release, the iPhone maker said it would be closing retail stores outside China until March 27. A note on its website

Remote collaboration tools like Zoom are gathering massive amounts of attention as people begin working from home en masse. But, as with most trends, virtual reality seems to be sitting out this boom. This should be surprising to absolutely no one, but the lack of widespread adoption is not for lack of trying. Virtual reality

Users of Storz & Bickel’s vaporizers can once again connect their vapes to iPhones. The company’s solution comes several months after Apple enacted a ban on apps for tobacco and cannabis vaporizers. This time around, Storz & Bickel turned to a web app to provide iPhone users with expanded controls over their vapes. I found

The European Commission has set out a plan to move towards a ‘right to repair’ for electronics devices, such as mobile phones, tablets and laptops. More generally it wants to restrict single-use products, tackle “premature obsolescence” and ban the destruction of unsold durable goods — in order to make sustainable products the norm. The proposals

Blade, the French startup behind Shadow, announced plans to overhaul its subscription tiers back in October. The company is now bringing the new plans to the U.S. with a new entry tier at $11.99 per month as well as more powerful options in the coming months. Shadow is a cloud computing service for gamers. For

According to a new report from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple could unveil new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models with scissor-switch keyboards. MacRumors first noticed the report; TechCrunch obtained the research note as well. Apple updated the big MacBook Pro in November. The company slightly increased the size of the display from 15” to 16”

The Trump administration is preparing an executive order to ban federal departments and agencies from buying or using foreign-made drones, citing a risk to national security, TechCrunch has learned. The draft order, which was drafted in the past few weeks and seen by TechCrunch, would effectively ban both foreign-made drones or drones made with foreign

Augmented reality headset maker Magic Leap has struggled with the laws of physics and failed to get to market. Now it’s seeking an acquirer, but talks with Facebook and medical goods giant Johnson & Johnson led nowhere according to a new report from Bloomberg’s Ed Hammond. After raising over $2 billion and being valued between

“Smart” cameras are to be found in millions of homes, but the truth is they’re not all that smart. Facial recognition and motion detection are their main tricks… but what if you want to know if the dog jumped on the couch, or if your toddler is playing with the stove? Visual One equips cameras

I see far more research articles than I could possibly write up. This column collects the most interesting of those papers and advances, along with notes on why they may prove important in the world of tech and startups. This week: crowdsourcing in space, vision on a chip, robots underground and under the skin and

Drones making deliveries is of course the hot new hyperlocal tech play, but where are these futuristic aircraft supposed to land? On the lawn? Matternet has built a landing station for its cargo drones that looks less like a piece of infrastructure and more like a death ray from a ’60s sci-fi movie. Far from

According to a report from 9to5mac, Apple could be working on full cursor support for the next major version of iOS and iPadOS. The report is based on code of an early version of iOS 14 and iPadOS 14. If Apple ships that new feature, it means that you’ll be able to use a Bluetooth

Building a rocket is a big operation, even when you’re printing them from the ground up, like Relativity Space . The launch startup is graduating from its initial office, which is a bit cramped for assembling rockets, to a huge space in Long Beach where the company will go from prototype to first flight. We

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has updated its flagship model, the Raspberry Pi 4. It’s still the same awesome tiny single-board computer with a lot of connectors. But the entry-level device now comes with 2GB of RAM instead of 1GB of RAM for the same price of $35. The foundation says that RAM prices have been

Tempo wants to be the Peloton of barbells. It’s a 42-inch tall screen with 3D machine vision that tracks and teaches you as you workout. The giant upright HD display makes it feel like your personal trainer is right there with you while you compete with others in live and on-demand classes. Tempo’s Microsoft Kinect-esque

As much as we’d all like to believe that our houses are built with perfectly square angles and other highly regular measurements, that’s rarely the case — which makes remodeling complex and tedious. ShapeMeasure hopes to alleviate that pain with a device that automatically measures a space and a robotic mill that cuts the required

For a decade, Apple has solely relied on third-party sellers, stores, and marketplaces to sell its products in India. That will begin to change this year. At the company’s annual shareholder meeting Wednesday, chief executive Tim Cook told investors that Apple will open its online store in India, the world’s second largest smartphone market, at

India is unlikely to have any substantial coverage of 5G until at least the end of next year, with telecom operators in the country yet to participate in spectrum auction. But that hasn’t stopped Chinese vendors Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi from bringing 5G-enabled smartphones to the world’s second largest handset market. Xiaomi, Vivo’s sub-brand iQoo,

The specter of constant surveillance hangs over all of us in ways we don’t even fully understand, but it is also possible to turn the tools of the watchers against them. Forensic Architecture is exhibiting several long-term projects at the Museum of Art and Design in Miami that use the omnipresence of technology as a

Petnet, the smart pet feeder backed by investors including Petco, recently experienced a week-long system outage affecting its second-generation SmartFeeders. While the startup’s customer service recently tweeted that its SmartFeeders and app’s functionality have been restored, Petnet’s lack of responsiveness continues to leave many customers frustrated and confused. Petnet first announced on Feb. 14 that

As Samsung (re)unveiled its clamshell folding phone last week, I kept seeing the same question pop up amongst my social circles: why? I was wondering the same thing myself, to be honest. I’m not sure even Samsung knows; they’d win me over by the end, but only somewhat. The halfway-folded, laptop-style “Flex Mode” allows you

The coronavirus outbreak could result in at least a 3.3% drop — and as high as a 9% dip — in the volume of PCs that will ship globally this year, research firm Canalys reported Thursday evening in its revised projections to clients. PC shipments will be down between 10.1% to 20.6% in Q1 2020,

“The Mandalorian” was a pretty good show. On that most people seem to agree. But while a successful live-action Star Wars TV series is important in its own right, the way this particular show was made represents a far greater change, perhaps the most important since the green screen. The cutting edge tech (literally) behind

The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has intervened to raise concerns about Google’s plan to scoop up the health and activity data of millions of Fitbit users — at a time when the company is under intense scrutiny over how extensively it tracks people online and for antitrust concerns. Google confirmed its plan to acquire

Security camera maker Ring is updating its service to improve account security and give more control when it comes to privacy. Once again, this is yet another update that makes the overall experience slightly better but the Amazon-owned company is still not doing enough to protect its users. First, Ring is reversing its stance when

Nokia, one of the omnipresent firms at major tech trade conferences, won’t be attending this year’s Mobile World Congress, it said Wednesday citing health and safety concerns over coronavirus outbreak. The Finnish company has become the latest to back out of MWC. In recent days, scores of firms including Ericsson, Amazon, Vivo, and Sony have withdrawn

It was South Korea’s — rather than Netflix’s — night at the Oscars, thanks to Bong Joon-ho’s biting class satire Parasite, which won a well-deserved best picture gong.  But tech giant Samsung appears to have been hoping to steal a little of the national limelight: The Korean phone maker chose a prime Oscars ad slot