Browsing: Tech Reviews

An iPhone 17E is the followup to last year’s $599 iPhone 16E. Apple/Jeffrey Hazelwood/CNETApple on Monday unveiled its newest budget phone, the iPhone 17E. Like last year, it starts at $599 (£599, AU$999), but it comes with 256GB of base storage — double last year’s entry-level iPhone 16E. Perhaps the biggest upgrade: the iPhone 17E supports MagSafe, so you can charge wirelessly faster and attach accessories like stands, wallets and cases.Apple’s latest-generation A19 chip powers the iPhone 17E, which is the same one found in the baseline iPhone 17. But there’s a small caveat: the iPhone 17E has a quad-core GPU, versus five…

Claude has hit number one on the US Apple App Store chartIt’s linked to anger over ChatGPT’s deal with the US militaryClaude continues to be used inside various US government agenciesIt seems that AI chatbot Claude is gaining a substantial number of new users in the wake of developer Anthropic’s decision to step away from a deal with the US military: the app has now hit number one in Apple’s App Store chart in the US.As reported by TechCrunch and others, Claude’s popularity boost is linked to Anthropic’s announcement late last week that it had failed to reach an agreement…

After briefly announcing its new foldable at CES, Motorola is now ready to debut its first book-style foldable in full at MWC 2026. There are several features we already knew, including support for Motorola’s new Pen Ultra stylus and no fewer than five cameras. However, many specs were still unknown. There are some pleasant surprises.Motorola decided to make both screens brighter than any of its rivals by quite a margin. The main 8.1-inch foldable display of the Razr Fold has a peak brightness of 6200 nits, while the external screen almost matches it with 6000 nits. For comparison, both screens…

Part phone, part lighter. It can make calls and make fire. David Lumb/CNETHave you ever wanted your phone to last for days in the wild and light your campfire, too? At the Showstoppers press event ahead of MWC 2026, I saw a new smartphone from outdoor electronics company Oukitel that aims to be an all-in-one device for the rugged digital nomad. The Oukitel WP63 phone is around $500 and checks a lot of boxes. It’s got a 20,000-mAh battery — yes, twenty thousand milliamp hours — with an included USB-C port that can charge your other devices. It also powers the audio speaker…

Open Instagram and you would think post-workout recovery begins and ends with an ice bath. After you hit ‘save’ on your Apple Watch, your run zips off to the Strava cloud, plenty of social media influencers advise you go for a cold plunge (if you have access) or a cold shower (if you don’t).But a new human study on muscle healing suggests something different: if you actually want your muscles to repair themselves, you are better off turning the hot tap up than jumping into a tub of freezing water or opting for a cold shower.Dr Freya Bayne, a sport…

Who would’ve guessed we’d get to play the original Banjo-Kazooie on a handheld with just a D-pad in 2026. HyperMegaTech!’s latest release is a collaboration with Rare Ltd., the legendary game developer known for the Banjo-Kazooie franchise and, more recently, Sea of Thieves, called the Super Pocket Rare Edition.The vertical handheld features 14 classics from the British developer, including two Battletoads titles, Conker’s Pocket Tales and many more. While most of the games were released on 8- or 16-bit consoles, Banjo-Kazooie will be the headliner since it was originally released on the Nintendo 64. It may sound weird to control…

When to watch MotoGP 2026 racesThe 2026 season runs from March 1 until Nov. 22.Where to watchThe MotoGP season will stream in the US on Fox Sports. 73% off with 2yr plan (+4 free months). Now only $3.49/month See more details See at Sling TV Carries FS1 and FS2 for $57 a month Sling TV Blue plus Sports Extra See at Fubo Carries Carries FS1 and FS2 for $56 a month Fubo Show more (3 items) The new MotoGP season kicks into gear this weekend, with familiar rivalries set to be renewed and a number of exciting new riders joining…

Apple will manufacture the Mac mini in the United States starting later this yearProduction will shift from Vietnam and China to a Houston Foxconn facilityThe Houston warehouse conversion provides 220,000 square feet of Mac mini assembly spaceApple has announced it will begin manufacturing the Mac mini, its compact mini PC, in the United States later this year, shifting part of its production from Vietnam and China.The company plans to use a Foxconn facility in north Houston, converting a 220,000-square-foot warehouse into manufacturing space.Apple says this initiative is intended to serve local demand while gradually scaling production to meet broader global…

Google and other browser makers require that all TLS certificates be published in public transparency logs, which are append-only distributed ledgers. Website owners can then check the logs in real time to ensure that no rogue certificates have been issued for the domains they use. The transparency programs were implemented in response to the 2011 hack of Netherlands-based DigiNotar, which allowed the minting of 500 counterfeit certificates for Google and other websites, some of which were used to spy on web users in Iran. Once viable, Shor’s algorithm could be used to forge classical encryption signatures and break classical encryption…

OpenAI has reached an agreement with the Defense Department to deploy its models in the agency’s network, company chief Sam Altman has revealed on X. In his post, he said two of OpenAI’s most important safety principles are “prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems.” Altman claimed the company put those principles in its agreement with the agency, which he called by the government’s preferred name of Department of War (DoW), and that it had agreed to honor them.The agency has closed the deal with OpenAI, shortly after President…