Author: News Room

I am, by every reasonable measure, a serial plant killer. I’ve lost count of the pothos, the peace lilies, the one very expensive fiddle-leaf fig that judged me silently for a month before giving up entirely. My problem was never a lack of love. It was that I’d either drown them out of guilt or forget they existed for a fortnight, with no middle ground. So when I started leaning on Gemini for the odd everyday question, letting it babysit my plants wasn’t some grand plan. It happened almost by accident, and now my flat looks like something a person…

Google’s next smartwatch may have just lost what little mystery it had left. High-resolution Pixel Watch 5 renders shared by longtime device leaker Steve Hemmerstoffer, better known as OnLeaks, show both case sizes and what’s claimed to be the complete color lineup ahead of Google’s expected August 12 launch event. The images were published in partnership with TheTideChart.com. Assuming the renders are accurate, Google isn’t straying far from its established formula. The domed display and proprietary band system both appear to be returning for another generation. How much has the design changed Judging by the images, almost nothing. Google’s pebble-like…

I’ll admit it: I ignored NotebookLM‘s Mind Maps feature for far longer than I should have. I mostly used the app to ask questions about my documents or generate Audio Overviews and Short Video Overviews, while that little Mind Map button sat untouched. I assumed it was more of a nice-to-have than something I’d actually use. Turns out, I was completely wrong. I stopped drowning in my own notes I eventually realized my biggest problem wasn’t finding information — it was actually making sense of it. Once you’ve dumped ten or fifteen articles, PDFs, and notes into a notebook, it…

A shortcut recommended by ChatGPT left two hikers stuck on a mountain face in Poland this month, and they needed a helicopter to get back down. It’s the latest case of an AI chatbot steering travelers toward routes it has no real way to evaluate. ChatGPT’s shortcut led straight to a dead end According to Cybernews, the two Lithuanian hikers were trying to reach the Five Lakes Valley in the Tatra Mountains and asked ChatGPT to find them a faster way there. The chatbot’s answer took them up toward Niebieska Turnia and onto the Świnicka Ławka traverse, a section that…

I’ve been an AirPods user for the last four years, and one of the things that makes it genuinely hard to leave behind is the seamless, almost magical pairing experience across devices. Open an AirPods case near your iPhone, and a pop-up appears within seconds. Switch to your Mac and the audio follows.  However, the experience is limited only to Apple devices. Doesn’t matter whether you have one of the coolest pieces of tech on the market right now; if it’s not Apple, it won’t get the same treatment. However, that might change for the Meta Quest or the Ray-Ban…

If you’ve ever felt like Claude gave you a completely different vibe on one day than another, you weren’t imagining it. Anthropic just published research confirming that its chatbot’s personality shifts depending on which model you pick and which language you type in, and the pattern is consistent enough that it’s worth knowing before you ask your next question. The model you pick decides how Claude responds The company analyzed 300,000 real Claude conversations and mapped the chatbot’s behavior across four traits, including how cautious versus accommodating it is and how encouraging versus rigorous its tone is. Its findings suggest…

The murder mystery genre clings tightly to a tried-and-true formula – a set toolbox and sequence of necessary events – that confines any story that adheres to its style. What’s so delightful about The Mermaid Mask is that it follows every rule and acknowledges every well-worn trope, but still stands with exciting and exceptional storytelling. With memorable puzzles, eye-catching animations, and a spirited voice cast, I admire the way the story was told just as much as the story itself. Magnus Mortuga, captain of the Mortuga Submarine, has been killed, and it’s up to Detective Grimoire and his assistant Sally…

If you shoot RAW and edit on your phone, Google’s free photo editing app Snapseed just got a lot more useful. The app has received a fresh update on Android, adding support for a long list of RAW formats it previously couldn’t handle. What’s new in Snapseed v4.1 Expanded RAW support is the big change in the new release. In a post on Reddit, the Snapseed team says version 4.1 covers most of the major formats and cameras on the market, including Sony’s ARW, Canon’s CR3, Nikon’s NEF, Fujifilm’s RAF, Olympus’ ORF, Pentax’s PEF, and the generic DNG format. The…

If you own a Pixel Watch, there’s a chance you have seen a stubborn permission prompt carrying the Fitbit logo on your wrist. It asks for access to your sensor data and refuses to leave no matter how many times you dismiss it. The frustrating part is that most people hit by this have already granted every permission the watch could possibly want. Everything is toggled on, and yet the warning keeps persisting.  Several users on Reddit have also pointed out that the Health app is still recording their sensor data without any trouble, which suggests the error message is…

The menu bar is the most underrated part of macOS. It sits quietly at the top of your screen, and most people never do anything with it other than checking the time and battery percentage. But if you find the right apps, that thin strip becomes the fastest way to get things done on your Mac. The problem is finding those apps. The Mac App Store is not great at surfacing them, and hunting through random blog lists is a chore. And while I have shared my favorite Mac utilities that include menu bar apps like Supercharge and CleanShot X,…