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 Pebble just announced the Index 01, a smart ring for recording thoughts. It's a little ring with a built-in microphone and that's about it. The Index 01 is almost anti-tech in its simplicity. There's no needless AI component shoehorned in, aside from speech-to-text. It's a ring with a microphone that you whisper ideas into and I want one.
Here's how it works. You get an idea while walking down the street, so you quietly whisper it into the ring. The ring sends the idea to a notes app or saves it for later review. Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky calls this an "external memory" for the brain, but I call it a nice way to avoid having to dig the phone out of a pocket or bag just to utter something like "pizza, but for cats."
The ring doesn't record unless a button is pushed, so it won't be listening in on private conversations, and it doesn't require a paid subscription of any kind. It's on the smaller side, about the size of a wedding band, and is water-resistant.
The battery also lasts for "years" and never needs to be charged. The ring is designed to be worn at all times, so users develop the muscle memory of holding down the little button when they have something to share. See what I mean? I want one, and I've quite literally never worn a ring in my life.
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NVIDIA is now allowed to sell its second-best H200 processors to China, rather than just the sanction-approved H20 model that China had previously declined to buy, President Trump wrote on Truth Social. The United States will collect a 25 percent tariff on those sales, the Commerce Department confirmed yesterday.
Trump said that he informed China's President Xi Jinping of the decision and that he "responded positively." The Commerce Department is finalizing details and the administration will take the same approach with AMD, Intel and other US companies. He added that the administration would "protect National Security," so the latest Blackwell and upcoming Rubin chips are not part of the deal. The 25 percent tariff would be higher than the 15 percent the White House suggested in August.
Though the administration won't allow NVIDIA to send its latest high-end chips, it was reportedly concerned that the company would lose business to Huawei if it was completely shut out of China's market, according to Reuters. No details about the number of H200 chips or which companies would be eligible to buy them were released. "Offering H200 to approved commercial customers, vetted by the Department of Commerce, strikes a thoughtful balance that is great for America," NVIDIA said in a statement.
The decision is not without controversy, though. Several Democratic US senators
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The Southern District of Texas announced the seizure of more than $50 million in NVIDIA GPUs bound for China in violation of US export laws. Authorities arrested two businessmen, one of them the owner of a Houston company, accused of smuggling the chips used to train and run AI models.
"Operation Gatekeeper has exposed a sophisticated smuggling network that threatens our Nation's security by funneling cutting-edge AI technology to those who would use it against American interests," said US Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei. The investigation had been ongoing since at least last year and centers on the illicit export or attempted export of at least $160 million worth of NVIDIA H100 and H200 GPUs. The H200 chips are the very same that the Trump administration announced a revenue-sharing agreement for today, allowing NVIDIA to sell them to "approved customers" in China.
The smuggling operation used a combination of falsified paperwork, purposefully misclassified goods, straw purchasers and even removing the NVIDIA labels on GPUs to ship them to both mainland China and Hong Kong. The conspirators face between 10 and 20 years in prison if convicted.
The H200 chips in question are more powerful than the H20 chip specifically designed to comply with US export restrictions. Production of the H20, however, was reportedly halted shortly after the Trump administration struck a
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AI companies are bullish on the tech's productivity, but replacing the judgment and care of human workers is a whole different ballgame.
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 Apple has announced the availability of Tap to Pay on iPhone in Hong Kong, allowing independent sellers, small merchants, and large retailers in the region to use ?iPhones? as a payment terminal.
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Owners of the Porsche Macan and upcoming Porsche Cayenne Electric will be able to unlock and start their cars with their Galaxy phones, Samsung has announced. The cars, alongside other Porsche models, are gaining support for Samsung Wallet's Digital Key feature, which lets users wirelessly control their car over a secure UWB or NFC connection.
Digital Key support will be available in Europe in December, before rolling out globally, "aligned with the launch timeline of Porsche vehicles," Samsung says. Samsung Wallet is available on Samsung devices as old as the Galaxy S20, Note 20, Galaxy Z Fold 2 and Galaxy Flip 5G, and is included on the majority of the company's new phones. Like similar features on Google's Pixels and Apple's iPhones, Digital Key allows Porsche owners with a supported Galaxy phone to unlock, lock and start their car directly from their phone. If your phone is ever taken, you can also remotely lock or delete a Digital Key to keep your car safe.
Samsung added Digital Key support to select Volvo and Polestar EVs in February 2025. The feature
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You can add the Switch 2 to the (long) list of platforms where you can play The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The bad news: It costs $60 to play the 2011 game optimized for Nintendo's 2025 hardware. The good news: It costs less (or nothing) if you own one of the versions for the original Switch.
The (digital-only) Switch 2 port is the Anniversary Edition of Skyrim, released in 2021. That includes the base game and three expansions (Dawnguard, Dragonborn and Hearthfire). You'll also find hundreds of Creation Club items, like quests, weapons, armor, spells and dungeons. The Anniversary Edition's Zelda crossover content (Master Sword, Hylian Shield and Champion's Tunic) is also there. So, at least there's plenty of content.
The game also offers technical upgrades for the Switch 2 hardware. It has enhanced resolution, DLSS anti-aliasing, faster load times and general performance optimizations. There's also mouse support, motion controls and Amiibo support. The trailer below gives you an idea of what to expect.
In an
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Google and Apple have long existed as polar opposites, each ruling over their tech kingdoms with little interest in cooperation. But the latest build of Android's Canary operating system hints at an unusual instance of collaboration between the brands, with a new feature that seems aimed at making data transfer simpler between Android and iOS mobile device during the setup phase. It is expected to also be available in a future developer beta of iOS 26.
A representative for Google confirmed that the report from 9to5Google on this development is accurate, but didn't provide any additional details on how the transfer will work. Each brand already has their own dedicated Switch to Android and Switch to iOS apps for making the swap between ecosystems, but making the transition easier at the operating system level and adding support for moving more types of data certainly sounds promising. That said, features can go through a fair bit of iteration between the dev betas and the final launch, and Android Canary is a very early stage of development, so we'll be curious to see what actually arrives on our smartphones.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/google-and-apple-partner-on-better-android-iphone-switching-204738960.html?src=rss
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 Apple Wallet car key support is coming to Rivian's second-generation R1S and R1T electric vehicles with a 2025.46 software update later this month, according to the company's software chief Wassym Bensaid. He did not provide a specific date.
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Roskomnadzor, Russia's federal agency for monitoring and censoring mass media, has blocked access to Snapchat and FaceTime in the country, Bloomberg reports, citing Russian news service Interfax. The bans were reportedly put in place because the platforms were used "to organize and carry out terrorist acts," and commit fraud.
It's not clear if either service is still accessible by using a VPN, but banning Snapchat and FaceTime fits with Russia's crackdown on communication and social platforms that started after the country's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Facebook and X were blocked in March of that year, and Instagram was added to the ban list not long after. In 2024, the encrypted messaging app Signal was also banned, and more recently in July 2025, Russia threatened to block access to WhatsApp.
Engadget has contacted both Apple and Snap to comment on the Russian bans. We'll update this article if we hear back.
Banning or restricting these platforms is a way to exert control over where and h
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