I went looking for weird phones and CES 2026 did not disappoint
I went looking for weird phones and CES 2026 did not disappoint

It’s January, which means there’s a whole year of rectangular glass slabs ahead of us. But before that happens, I managed to find phones of a different shape lurking around the corners of the CES convention center halls. They weren’t center stage, of course. That was reserved for robots doing laundry badly. But in the […]

Scenes from the anti-ICE march in New York City
Scenes from the anti-ICE march in New York City

On Thursday evening in Manhattan’s Financial District, hundreds of protesters braved the cold to protest US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), after an agent fatally shot a woman at close range on Wednesday. Earlier that day, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s visit to One World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan sparked protests outside […]

The most popular games are getting harder and harder to usurp
The most popular games are getting harder and harder to usurp

It’s harder than ever for a new video game to crack the top of the most-played list. According to the Circana Player Engagement Tracker and video game market analyst Mat Piscatella, in 2025, the top five most-played games on PS5 and Xbox… were the same in 2024. And they likely won’t be changing anytime soon. […]

America’s new era of energy imperialism is about more than oil 
America’s new era of energy imperialism is about more than oil 

President Donald Trump has no shame in admitting what he wants to get out of attacking Venezuela and threatening other energy resource-rich nations. “We’re gonna get the oil flowing the way it should be,” he said January 3rd, soon after his administration stunned the world with what many policy experts and Democratic lawmakers are calling […]

X’s deepfake machine is infuriating policymakers around the globe
X’s deepfake machine is infuriating policymakers around the globe

X’s Grok chatbot hasn’t stopped accepting users’ requests to strip down women and, in some cases, apparent minors to AI-generated bikinis. According to some reports, the flood of AI-generated images includes more extreme content that potentially violates laws against nonconsensual intimate imagery (NCII) and child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Even in the US, where X […]

I played with the Lego Smart Brick
I played with the Lego Smart Brick

When The Lego Group announced that its biggest innovation since 1978 would be a tiny proprietary computer brick, the reactions were divided. I heard from people concerned this was the death of imagination from a company that’s all about imagination – and from people who thought it sounded pretty cool! Personally, I walked in skeptical. […]

Influencer content is fuel for an internet-obsessed administration
Influencer content is fuel for an internet-obsessed administration

Just a day after publishing a 40-minute video alleging fraud at Minnesota daycare centers, Nick Shirley had the vice president’s attention. In Shirley’s video, he and another man identified only as “David” roam Minneapolis with cameras and microphones, demanding entrance to daycare centers they say are operated by members of the local Somali community. With […]

Grok is undressing children — can the law stop it?
Grok is undressing children — can the law stop it?

Grok began 2026 as it began 2025: under fire for its AI-generated images. Elon Musk’s chatbot has spent the last week flooding X with nonconsensual, sexualized deepfakes of adults and minors. Circulating screenshots show Grok complying with requests to put real women in lingerie and make them spread their legs, and to put small children […]

Power bank feature creep is out of control 
Power bank feature creep is out of control 

There was a time not too long ago when buying a power bank was as easy as choosing the cheapest portable battery that could charge your phone and quickly slip into your pocket, purse, or backpack. The hardest part was deciding whether it was time to ditch USB-A ports. Recently, however, brands have been slathering […]

No, Microsoft didn’t rebrand Office to Microsoft 365 Copilot
No, Microsoft didn’t rebrand Office to Microsoft 365 Copilot

Microsoft has got the internet confused, again. Over the past couple of days posts on Reddit, Hacker News, and X have claimed Microsoft has rebranded Microsoft Office to Microsoft 365 Copilot. As much as Microsoft loves to shove its Copilot branding everywhere, Office hasn’t been renamed to “Microsoft 365 Copilot app.” The confusion comes from […]