How TiVo killed live TV
For a while, it seemed like everyone had a TiVo. It was a plot point on major TV shows; it had A-list Hollywood fans; it became a verb as ubiquitous…
January 2026
I went looking for weird phones and CES 2026 did not disappoint
Not every phone needs to be a black rectangle. It’s January, which means there’s a whole year of rectangular glass slabs ahead of us. But before that happens, I managed…
Will you have to show your ID at the app store?
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the action (and inaction) of lawmakers seeking to rein in tech…
The oceans just keep getting hotter
Since 2018, a group of researchers from around the world has crunched the numbers on how much heat the world’s oceans are absorbing each year. In 2025, their measurements broke…
Musk says he’s going to open-source the new X algorithm next week
In 2023, what was then still called Twitter, open-sourced at least portions of the code that decided what it served up in your feed. But that GitHub repository is hopelessly…
These are the smart home gadgets that impressed me at CES 2026
A giant version of Lockin’s wirelessly charged V7 smart lock was a showstopper on the CES show floor. I picked Aqara’s Smart Lock U400 and Roborock’s Saros Rover robot vacuum…
The FCC is letting SpaceX launch 7,500 more Starlink satellites
The FCC approved SpaceX’s plan to launch an additional 7,500 Gen2 Starlink satellites on Friday. That brings the total number of satellites the company will have in orbit to around…
Amazfit’s Active 2 tracker and Blu-rays are this week’s best deals
The start of the year is typically a great time to snag deals on health and fitness gear, including trackers and wireless earbuds, and this week was no exception. We…
I’ve never used a trackball, but Keychron’s Nape Pro looks like the perfect one
Put this ball under your board. Keychron announced new mechanical keyboards with marathon battery life at CES, but this trackball stole the spotlight. The Nape Pro is Keychron’s first trackball,…
Betterment’s financial app sends customers a $10,000 crypto scam message
Betterment, a financial app, sent a sketchy-looking notification on Friday asking users to send $10,000 to Bitcoin and Ethereum crypto wallets and promising to “triple your crypto,” according to a…