gadgets

As I write, Apple and Meta are rolling out their latest gadgets: intrusive glasses that allow anyone to film you without your knowledge, and a watch with a permanent listening mode, recording all your conversations and…

E-paper gadgets for family and friends: ESP32 Rust firmware with no main loop, a captive-portal config UI served from flash, and a 3D-printed case that is also just code.

Artist’s rendition | Image:The Verge, Getty Images The Wing Hummingbird 7000W-B delivery drone weighs less than 15 pounds. It has 16 propellers - four for horizontal movement and 12 for vertical - a top speed of 60 miles per hour, a carrying capacity of up to 2.7 pounds, and a delivery radius of about six miles. It is authorized by the FAA for beyond-line-of-sight piloting. As a feat of engineering, it is impressive. So far I've mostly used it to send people potatoes. It all started a few Sunday mornings ago when my neighbor Will added me and a half dozen other local dads to a group chat. I only recognized a few of the numbers. "Anyone looking for dumb stuff to entertain the kids?" he … Read the full story at The Verge.

The flagship Bose headphones will now be able to connect to Auracast broadcasts for better accessibility. | Image: The Verge A new firmware update for the $449 Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones Gen 2 adds support for Bluetooth LE Audio and Auracast as beta features. The flagship Ultra headphones are the first from Bose to support the audio sharing technology, which the company plans to bring to more devices soon. Only a few major manufacturers include Auracast, and only on select headphones or earbuds - including Sony , JBL headphones , Samsung Galaxy Buds , and Sennheiser, which also released an Auracast transmitter this year. Some smaller companies, like EarFun, have added support. But Bose is one of the most recognizable names in headphones, so the fact that it' … Read the full story at The Verge.

It's right there in the name: "Insta360" makes 360-degree cameras, ones that film every angle simultaneously so you can shoot first and frame later . It didn't invent the idea, but Insta360 has become so synonymous with 360 cameras that it dominates the category with 73 percent of worldwide marketshare . It's preparing to ship so many cameras, it just spent $298 million - more than GoPro's entire valuation - on memory chips alone. But as Insta360 sells its 10 millionth camera and opens its first flagship US store in New York City's Times Square, it's thinking bigger than two hemispherical lenses on a stick. It's looking to challenge Canon, So … Read the full story at The Verge.

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta Platforms Inc., speaks during the Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, California, US, on Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026. | Bloomberg via Getty Images Earlier this month, Apple announced that its new Apple Watches will have the ability to continuously listen to every spoken word they detect and create summaries of whatever's going on around you. The privacy blowback was immediate and inevitable: Experts warned of the legal risks of using the features, especially in nonpublic spaces and states where eavesdropping laws require both parties to consent to being recorded. Many others called the tech " creepy ." Apple, prepared for the backlash, launched an entire page of technical details in an attempt to reassure people that no, it's not spying on them. The company claimed that one feature, Liv … Read the full story at The Verge.

Just a couple of weeks after launching Muse , Meta announced that it's "working on" bringing the agent to its smart glasses, including the new glasses it unveiled at Meta Connect. Users will be able to activate Muse from their glasses by saying its name and ask it to handle tasks like guiding a workout, logging meals, or helping them shop for products they're looking at. Muse is just one of several major updates coming to Meta's glasses. They're also getting some new accessibility features, like a Hearing Enhancement feature Meta says is "FDA-cleared software for adults with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss." It will be available lat … Read the full story at The Verge.

Dell’s XPS Googlebook is just one of the devices Google needs to be great. In late 2010, an up-and-coming Google executive named Sundar Pichai took the stage in front of a bunch of reporters and explained that Google had a big new idea about laptops. In the future, he said, the only thing you'd need on your computer was a web browser - that was where all your apps, data, and connections would live going forward. Your computer didn't need much storage, Pichai explained, or any fancy hardware, because the cloud would do the work. The software designed for these new laptops, Chrome OS , was an enormous bet that the web would eventually overtake everything. Chrome OS (which eventually became ChromeOS ) has been, in many … Read the full story at The Verge.

The TV in your living room knows more about you than you realize. | Photo by John Higgins / The Verge The TV world has been a pot of controversy thanks to a two-hour-and-15-minute video from Gamers Nexus claiming LG TVs are nefariously spying on everything you do. They can record and store audio even when they seem to be off, track everything you watch, and could even be hacked remotely and turned into covert surveillance devices. LG TV owners, and tech enthusiasts in general, are furious, and a hurried response from LG has done little to calm the situation. Some of the claims in the video may be based on speculation and assumptions, but many of the core concerns are real and pervasive. While LG was the focus of the video, every TV company … Read the full story at The Verge.