Browsing: Tech Reviews

Over 4,000 exhibitors flocked to Las Vegas, Nevada this week to showcase their wares at CES 2026. The Engadget team, as usual, was out in full force covering the show. The week began with press conferences from huge companies at the show, mostly filled with AI buzzwords, vague promises and quite little in the way of hard news.More than one company even decided to forgo announcing things during their conferences to make way for more AI chatter, only to publish press releases later quietly admitting that, yes, actually, they did make some consumer technology. It’s appropriate, I guess, that as…

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a tough one.  All of those initials were difficult to sort through. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play…

Most of today’s best robot vacuums have docks that will automatically empty the dustbins, clean the mop pads and sometimes more. Now, it looks like that same idea is starting to make its way into robotic window cleaners.I’ve just been introduced to the new version of Ecovacs’ windowbot – the WinBot W3 Omni – at CES 2026, and it comes with its own clean station. It’s called the Vortex Wash OMNI Station, and Ecovacs says it’s the first of its kind. (Image credit: Future)Once your automated window-cleaning is complete, you remove the plate with the mop pads on it (without…

If you have gotten yourself a new Wi-Fi 7 router or system, congratulations! Today, it’s its 2nd anniversary. The standard was certified on January 8, 2024. With that, this post will talk about its successor: Wi-Fi 8. This upcoming standard became almost a real thing with the NeoCore concept router ASUS is showcasing at CES 2026, coinciding with Broadcom’s announcement of its second round of Wi-Fi 8 chips, following the first round in mid-October last year, which followed Qualcomm’s announcement earlier during the year. This post will explain Wi-Fi 8 in simple terms. However, the biggest takeaway is that it’s…

But despite OpenAI’s talk of supporting health goals, the company’s terms of service directly state that ChatGPT and other OpenAI services “are not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of any health condition.” It appears that policy is not changing with ChatGPT Health. OpenAI writes in its announcement, “Health is designed to support, not replace, medical care. It is not intended for diagnosis or treatment. Instead, it helps you navigate everyday questions and understand patterns over time—not just moments of illness—so you can feel more informed and prepared for important medical conversations.” A cautionary tale The SFGate report…

Lumus got a major boost in brand recognition when one of its waveguides was selected for use in the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses. But that already feels like old tech now because at CES 2026, the company brought some of its latest components to the show and based on what I saw, they seem poised to seriously elevate the optical quality of the next wave of high-end smartglasses.When the Meta Ray-Ban Displays glasses came out, they wowed users as they were (and still are) one of a handful of smartglassess to feature a full-color in-lens display with at least a…

Spotify is making it easier to keep up with what your family and friends are listening to by adding two new features to Messages. Listening Activity and Request to Jam are launching in the mobile app, the company announced on Wednesday. Previously, you could monitor your friend’s listening only on the desktop version of the app, but now, these two social features will let you share what you’re listening to and see the tunes your friends are into in real-time.Messages, which Spotify launched in Aug. 2025, lets you share links to songs, start Jams or create blended playlists via direct message.…

The VPN industry faced significant challenges in 2025, navigating age verification, AI and increasing internet censorship. According to Himmat Bains, Product Lead for Norton VPN, it was a “turning point where online privacy shifted from a niche concern to a mainstream expectation.With that in mind, I spoke to NordVPN, Proton VPN and Norton VPN to find out the biggest events of the past 12 months and to hear what they’re excited about in 2026.The rise (and risk) of AIAI may have become a staple of everyday life for many, but it’s not without its risks. “There is growing concern about…

Motorola, often known for cable modems, today unveiled its first Wi-Fi 7 device at CES 2026: the Motorola MNQ1525. You can use a single unit as a standalone router, or pair multiple units to form a mesh network. If that sounds easy, that’s the idea behind the hardware. And simplicity is also what the MNQ1525 offers in its hardware specs compared to other Wi-Fi 7 mesh systems: it’s modest. The Motorola MNQ1525 Wi-Fi 7 mesh router can operate as a standalone unit or as part of a mesh system. Picutured here is a 3-pack showcased at CES 2026. Related stories…

Earlier this month, a hacker named Lovely claimed to have breached a Condé Nast user database and released a list of more than 2.3 million user records from our sister publication WIRED. The released materials contain demographic information (name, email, address, phone, etc.) but no passwords. The hacker also says that they will release an additional 40 million records for other Condé Nast properties, including our other sister publications Vogue, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and more. Of critical note to our readers, Ars Technica was not affected as we run on our own bespoke tech stack. The hacker said…