|
 In a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, U.S. Senators Ron Wyden, Ben Ray Lujan, and Edward Markey have requested that Apple and Google remove X Corp's X and Grok apps from their app stores over recent incidents of "mass generation of nonconsensual sexualized images of women and children."
|
|
Probably my favorite thing about the Lego Smart Play system unveiled this week at CES is that it was designed for kids, first and foremost. In the past 10 years or so, Lego has increasingly courted an older audience with more expensive and elaborate sets. But when it was time to bring more advanced technology to Lego, the idea right from the beginning was more social and interactive play.
If you haven't heard about Smart Play yet, its a way for Lego to make its sets more interactive. A Smart Brick filled with sensors makes it so sets can respond to each other, know when they're moving, play sounds and know when the corresponding Smart Minifigures are near them. Tiny Smart Tags, meanwhile, help the Smart Brick know the context of how it's being used — whether it's in a helicopter, car or duck for example.
Tom Donaldson, senior VP and Head of Creative Play Lab at the LEGO Group, told Engadget that the company worked on Smart Play for about eight years before introducing it this week, and that social play was the starting point. "We started really looking at consumer needs, and this idea that kids really like social play," said Donaldson "Kids really like the sort of things that change when they come back to them, and the kids really like agency. They want to be able to change things."
|
|
Ditch the frying pan to eliminate greasy, messy stovetops by using an air fryer to make grilled cheese. Trust me, it's so worth it.
|
|
A new year is the perfect time to get your spending in order, and if you're not trying to build your own spreadsheet, budgeting apps are one of the best ways to do it. To save yourself some money in the process, you can pick up a year-long subscription to Monarch Money, one of Engadget's favorite budgeting apps, for just $50 if you use code NEWYEAR2026 at checkout and you're a new subscriber. That's a 50 percent discount on the service's normal $100 price.
Monarch Money makes for a capable and detailed budgeting companion. You can use the service via apps for iOS, Android, iPadOS or the web, and Monarch also offers a Chrome extension that can sync your Amazon and Target transactions and automatically categorize them. Like other budgeting apps, Monarch Money lets you connect multiple financial accounts and track your money based on where you spend it over time. Monarch offers two different approaches to tracking budgeting (flexible and category budgeting) depending on what fits your life best, and the ability to add a budget widget on your phone so you can know how you're tracking that month.
|
RELATED ARTICLES | | |
|
 Even as CES 2026 wraps up soon, there's no shortage of standout hardware hiding in plain sight. From genuinely quieter yard tools to ultra-light EVs and companion robots that want to remember your family, Day 3 was all about tech that felt a little more considered — and in some cases, refreshingly practical.
If you can't get enough of CES, be sure to check out our picks for best of CES 2026, which highlights the most impressive new tech we've seen in Las Vegas. We've also rounded up the CES gadgets you can buy right now if you're itching to place an order, along with a look at the weirdest tech at CES 2026, because it wouldn't be CES without a few delightfully unhinged ideas.
Tone Outdoors T1 leaf blowerTone Outdoors T1Billy Steele for EngadgetThe Tone Outdoors T1 leaf blower is one of the rare CES gadgets that makes an immediate, obvious impression — mostly because it's shockingly quiet. Wh
|
|
 The iPhone Fold will be the first Apple device to adopt a Samsung-made OLED technology called CoE (Color Filter on Encapsulation), which could make the display brighter and thinner than previous panels, reports The Elec.
|
|
Boiling eggs in the air fryer makes it easy to get the results you want every time.
|
|
 If you've never docked a boat before, consider yourself lucky. There are plenty of popular TikTok channels devoted to shaming those who bring their craft back home clumsily or berth them with something less than finesse. Tricky crosswinds, unpredictable surf and even the jeers of passersby can make it a stressful experience at the best of times.
Brunswick, which owns more than 50 water-borne brands like Sea Ray, Bayliner and Mercury Marine, has a solution. It's demonstrating some self-docking tech called AutoCaptain at CES 2026 that makes this process a cinch, plus a fleet of other innovations that, in some cases, leave some of the smart cars on the show floor looking a bit remedial.
One of those technologies is edge AI. While in-car AI is an increasingly common feature, those agents are exclusively running remotely, relying on cellular connections to offload all the processing power required to drive a large language model.
Sadly, that won't always work on a boat.
One of Brunswick's tech-equipped boatsBrunswick"One of the things about AI for boats
| |
There's really only one problem: my laptop is too old for a Windows 11 update. On October 14th, 2025, Windows 10 will reach the end of its life period, which means no new features or security updates. The former is not a big problem. The latter will be a disaster.
I'm not alone in this situation. Over 50 percent of users are still running Windows 10, and this figure is gradually dropping. How many will have updated in six months' time is anyone's guess, but whatever the percentage, one thing is clear. A large proportion of the world's 1.6 billion Windows PCs will still be running Windows 10 on October 14th, 2025.
What makes this challenging is that Windows 11 is so technically demanding that it's not possible to update all fully functional computers. Sadly, my six-year-old laptop is one of them.
If Microsoft stops updating Windows 10, it wo
|
|
Companies that make DNA for science labs screen out any requests for dangerous bits of genetic material. But a new study shows how AI could help malevolent actors get the stuff anyway.
|
|
