Browsing: Tech Reviews

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…

It’s a new year, and a great time to fulfill your resolution to practice better cybersecurity. The early days of January are a great time to grab a last-minute subscription for yourself or a loved one. With access to a virtual private network (VPN), you can stream TV shows and events from all over the world, protect your information from hackers and thwart online trackers.Although we strongly recommend using a VPN, jumping on the first deal that comes along might get you stuck with a substandard app. Beyond that, even otherwise respectable VPNs sometimes frame their prices in misleading ways,…

Ty Pendlebury/CNETLG makes some of the best TVs on the market — I’ve been using an LG C2 OLED for some years, and am still blown away by its picture quality each time I sit down to watch a movie or a TV show. The company revealed its W6 Wallpaper TV at CES 2026. With its thin design, wireless connection box and the option to display artwork digitally, LG’s Wallpaper TV allows you to install a television in your living room while maintaining a clean setup that doesn’t, by default, make it the center of attention. Plus, enhancements to its…

Your Philips Hue lights are getting a new feature called Hue SpatialAwareIt applies scenes differently depending on the location of lights in a roomThere’s also a long-awaited update coming to the Philips Hue Bridge ProYour Philips Hue lights are getting an upgrade that’s going to make your rooms look a lot more cohesive. It’s called Hue SpatialAware, and it will apply lighting scenes differently depending on the location of smart lights within your room, resulting in a more natural-looking effect.Lighting scenes are palettes of themed colors that you can apply to all the lights in a particular room or area.…

TP-Link today showcased its two new Wi-Fi 7 devices at CES 2026: the Archer BE670 and the Deco BE77. As you might guess from the name, the former is meant to be a standalone router (though you can get multiple units to form an EasyMesh system) and the latter is a purpose-built mesh solution. Compared to this time last year, the number of new devices TP-Link announced this year is modest, likely because the company already has arguably the most extensive portfolio of Wi-Fi 7 solutions. In fact, these two new members barely squeeze into a tight spot in the…

Californians are getting a new, supercharged way to stop data brokers from hoarding and selling their personal information, as a recently enacted law that’s among the strictest in the nation took effect at the beginning of the year. According to the California Privacy Protection Agency, more than 500 companies actively scour all sorts of sources for scraps of information about individuals, then package and store it to sell to marketers, private investigators, and others. The nonprofit Consumer Watchdog said in 2024 that brokers trawl automakers, tech companies, junk-food restaurants, device makers, and others for financial info, purchases, family situations, eating,…

Jensen Huang took to the CES stage on Monday to share the latest from NVIDIA, and while the presentation was more a refresher of technologies the company has been working on for the past few years, there were a couple of notable announcements.NVIDIA announced Alpamayo, a family of open-source reasoning models designed to guide autonomous vehicles through difficult driving situations. The centerpiece of the release is Alpamayo 1 , a 10-billion parameter chain-of-thought system NVIDIA says is capable of approaching driving more like a human being would. The model works by breaking down unexpected driving situations into a smaller set…