Author: News Room
When Whoop introduced its eponymous screen-free wearable band, I didn’t expect it to become such a hit. Apparently, there’s a huge market for fitness trackets that don’t tie you into the trap of a distracting screen. Whoop’s formula was copied by multiple brands over the years, with the latest one being Fitbit Air by Google. Apple could be next in line. According to Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly planning a wearable device without a screen as navigates the realities of a market that continues to evolve across different form factors, including rings and earbuds. “The good news is, Apple is indeed…
Tech companies have spent years promising that AI will help people accomplish more in less time. Inside several companies leading that race, some employees are describing an awkward consequence. More productive tools haven’t necessarily produced shorter working days. Workers at OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Google told the BBC about punishing schedules and AI projects consuming nights and weekends. The twist is that their employers increasingly have evidence that AI really can help people get more done. AI really can help workers do more OpenAI says Codex has become the primary AI work tool across every department, including Legal, Finance, and…
Brain implants, like the ones made by Elon Musk’s Neuralink, typically involve open-skull surgery. But a Chinese startup says it can skip that step entirely, threading its device into the brain through a vein in a procedure that reportedly takes as little as ten minutes. According to the South China Morning Post, Shanghai-based StairMed Technology is one of several companies pursuing this approach, as the country pushes to expand its homegrown brain-computer interface (BCI) industry. Faster than Neuralink, on paper Unlike Neuralink’s implant, which requires a surgical robot to open the skull and place ultra-fine electrode threads directly into brain…
Hoy wants sending something from your Mac to feel as casual as dropping a file onto someone’s desk. Instead of opening another app, you drag it onto that person’s face sitting in the menu bar. The pre-release Mac app folds file sharing, voice notes, and screen recording into one lightweight interface. The person you’re sending something to effectively becomes the shortcut, which makes Hoy feel less like another messenger and more like a communication layer built into macOS. How does Hoy actually work Once someone joins a channel, Hoy puts their avatar in your Mac’s menu bar. You can drag…
Google is testing a small but useful change to Chrome for Android that could make downloading files less frustrating. Instead of automatically opening files such as PDFs in Chrome, the browser could soon send them directly to the app you have chosen to handle that file type. The feature is currently being tested through a Chrome Canary flag called “Open downloads in preferred app.” According to PiunikaWeb, the flag allows downloaded items to open in the user’s preferred application for that particular file type. It addresses a fairly familiar annoyance on Android. Download a PDF in Chrome today, and depending…
Mac developers keep finding new ways to make their laptops do things Apple never intended. Earlier this year, an app went viral for making MacBooks moan when slapped. Another unique app lets you feel a webpage’s buttons through the trackpad before you click them. Now, a developer has built one that makes the trackpad purr like a cat. PurrPad makes use of the Taptic Engine built into MacBook trackpads, so instead of hearing a purr through your speakers, you feel one under your palm. Developer Francesco Pavanetto, who shared the app on Reddit, says he tuned the vibration to the…
Ever since Apple started making smartwatches, the company has remained loyal to a rectangular design format for the screen. In the meantime, Google’s Wear OS (formerly Android Wear) has seen brands experiment with circular as well as rectangular screens on smartwatches. Well, it seems Apple is ready for a design overhaul, and it could finally serve a round display on its eponymous smartwatch down the road. According to Bloomberg, the company is eying a reset of its wearable device efforts, and one of the ideas being floated internally is a round display for smartwatches. The company is considering new devices…
Apple already sells some very expensive smartwatches, but it may be preparing to push the ceiling even higher. According to Bloomberg’s latest Power On newsletter, the company is considering new premium Apple Watch models that would sit beyond the current Ultra and Hermès variants. That could get expensive very quickly. The most expensive current-generation model Apple sells is the Apple Watch Hermès Ultra 3 at $1,399. Even without the Hermès branding, the standard Apple Watch Ultra 3 starts at $799. What would an even more premium Apple Watch look like? For now, that part remains unclear. Apple could simply take…
I use ChatGPT pretty much every day, but somewhere along the way, I’ve also developed a habit of poking around and looking for features I haven’t tried yet. Some discoveries are genuinely useful, while others are the kind I’ll probably remember once every six months. Every once in a while, though, I stumble across something that actually changes how I use ChatGPT. That happened recently with three features I’d somehow been overlooking. I’ve started using all three regularly now, and if you spend a lot of time in ChatGPT too, I think you’re missing out by not giving them a…
AI is all around us now. From your phone to home appliances, it practically sits everywhere–and it might just get a lot more intimate. A recent report claims OpenAI and Jony Ive are working on a small, screenless AI speaker shaped somewhat like a doughnut. It could be battery-powered, portable enough to carry around the house, and packed with microphones, cameras, sensors, speakers, lights, and even moving parts. It sounds like someone finally decided the Amazon Echo needed eyes and a personality. And not to be too negative, the idea of a “ChatGPT”-powered hardware really doesn’t sound so great. I…