Gadgets

In its early pre-pandemic days, Keychron made a name for itself with its series of affordable mechanical keyboards — including a few low-profile ones that remain a rarity to this day. Those boards didn’t necessarily appeal to enthusiasts, but were more than good enough for most mainstream users who wanted a different kind of keyboard.

It’s hard to get a thrill from glimpses of unreleased smartphone hardware these days, given the baked-in maturity of the mobile market and the general form and function sameness of the sticky rectangles we humans routinely spend hours poking at and peering into each day. But this rear-view design-teaser (below) of a forthcoming handset made

Rune Labs, a precision neurology company in San Francisco, announced that its StrivePD software ecosystem for Parkinson’s disease has been granted 510(k) clearance by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin using the Apple Watch to collect and measure data from Parkinson’s patients. The FDA approval is another reason the Apple Watch is

Puffco has long led the market with innovative cannabis vaporizers. The Puffco Peak Pro is easily one of the best e-rigs available, and the company just unveiled a new vape called the Proxy. It offers the best of the Peak Pro and can be built into various form factors. Don’t be distracted by the lovely

Apple surprised WWDC keynote watchers with the release of a new, fully redesigned MacBook Air. The MacBook Air, Apple’s most popular notebook computer, last got a significant physical overhaul in 2018. The new MacBook Air borrows design cues from both Apple’s latest iMac line, as well as the new MacBook Pros that were released in

Today at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple unveiled a slew of upgrades headed to iPad devices in iPadOS 16, the latest version of the company’s tablet-focused operating system. A redesigned multitasking interface — dubbed Stage Manager — makes it simpler to see which apps are open and switch between tasks, while new tools offer

European Union co-legislators have reached provisional agreement on a common charging solutions for smartphones, laptops, tablets and other small and medium sized electronics — some 15 different categories in all — agreeing that, by autumn 2024, USB Type C will be the common charging port for in scope devices. Laptop makers have been given a

One of the challenges faced by people with Parkinson’s disease is the possibility of “freezing” during normal movement, causing falls and lack of mobility. Surprisingly, small external cues can help them escape freezes or avoid them altogether — and De Oro has raised $2.8 million to commercialize its NexStride portable gadget, which provides those cues

Sonos went a bit further downmarket recently with the Ray, a smaller and cheaper soundbar than the Beam, itself a smaller, cheaper soundbar than the Arc. But while the Ray performs well, it doesn’t quite earn its premium and leaves one feeling that they should have just gone for something bigger. No one should have

Apple is improving its webcam on the shiny new M2 MacBooks, but for those of us still chugging along on our existing MacBooks, we’ll be able to use our iPhones as webcams ( … if we don’t want to sneak a look at our phone during a Zoom meeting). Later this year, Apple will begin

Ring announced new features for its Ring Protect Basic plan, such as more alert options, exclusive discounts (10%), up to 50 video downloads (up from 20) and 180 days of video (up from 60), plus a ton of “coming soon” features (smart alerts for cars, animals, alerts for breaking glass and open doors). However, with

Garmin just brought solar power to its Forerunner line, a cult-favorite among runners. Along with some other devices, the company took the wraps off its new Forerunner 995 Solar today. The $600 running watch packs a new touchscreen display, physical buttons, up to 20 days between charges via its “Power Glass” charging lens, multiband GPS

It’s been a tough few years for Berlin-based femtech hardware startup Inne which came out of stealth R&D in the fall of 2019, shortly before COVID-19 hit Europe. By January 2020, founder and CEO Eirini Rapti tells us she was busy making final inspections ahead of the launch of its debut product — a connected

Microsoft’s Imagine Cup is something I look forward to every year. The students and young entrepreneurs who submit their extremely early-stage projects to this global competition are like the seeds of future startups and potentially world-changing projects. This year’s winner, V Bionic, created a robotic glove to help patients with neurological damage recover faster at

If I were to make a list of things that I didn’t think needed to get smarter, bike pedals would be somewhere near the top of the list. And yet, when Redshift Sports showed me its shiny (literally!) new pedals, I had one of those “omg this makes so much sense” moments. In a nutshell,

I tried out the brand new Withings ScanWatch about six months ago, and concluded that it was a great smartwatch for people who prioritize their health over wearing a tiny iPhone-like device on their wrists. Today, the French company announced a classier-looking version of the same watch, borrowing design language from dive watches of yore.

Hardware, as the saying goes, is hard; but there remains an opportunity for startups that focus on specific niches to build viable businesses. In the latest example, reMarkable, the Oslo, Norway-based maker of a simple and slick $299 e-paper tablet of the same name, says that it has passed 1 million devices sold since 2017

Apple has released a bevy of new accessibility features for iPhone, Apple Watch, and Mac, including a universal live captioning tool, improved visual and auditory detection modes, and iOS access to WatchOS apps. The new capabilities will arrive “later this year” as updates roll out to various platforms. The most widely applicable tool is probably

A long, long time ago, before the iPod, MP3 players were badly designed devices with insufficient storage. The market was ripe for a change, and Steve Jobs, who had returned to Apple four years prior, was ready to give it to us. On October 23, 2001 the company released its first music player with a

The last thing we need in this world is more guns. But we’re getting them whether we like it or not, so wouldn’t it be nice if those guns had safety mechanisms like our phones, making them impossible for anyone but their owners to use? That’s what Biofire is building, and it has raised $17

Offering a sneak preview of the Pixel 7 wasn’t enough, so Google’s really leaning in. Today at I/O, the company announced that it’s returning to the tablet business with a new device set for, get this, a 2023 launch. “Normally we wouldn’t tease a new product before it’s ready,” said Google’s hardware chief Rick Osterloh,

If you’ve always wanted Giancarlo Esposito — the actor playing the meth-slinging Los Pollos Hermanos boss Gustavo Fring from “Breaking Bad” — to guide you through your choice of music, ho boy does Sonos have a treat for you. Esposito lent his voice to a Sonos speaker near you, alongside its long-awaited voice control feature

Most of the time no one has to think about how the mobile networks we all rely on work. But it won’t surprise many to hear that, as is often the case with infrastructure, some pieces are the latest tech and others haven’t changed in decades. Eridan is a well-funded startup aiming to replace one

DJI has just introduced a new drone — its most capable ever to squeak under the 250 gram limit that keeps operators free from a whole host of headaches and restrictions for flight (note that local laws and rules still do apply — being small doesn’t mean you can do anything you want). The DJI

Last October marked 20 years of the iPod. It’s a remarkable run in the cutthroat, always-iterating world of consumer electronics. And while it’s undoubtedly true that life hasn’t been particularly for the music player in a product lineup that includes various iPhones and iPads, the beloved music player has somehow managed to hang on. That

If drones are to take over any of the numerous tasks they are supposed to, they’re going to have to get a lot smarter — and learn to work together. In a demonstration of both of these things, Chinese researchers show off a swarm of drones collectively navigating a dense forest they’ve never encountered. We’ve

Boston- and San Francisco-based Mode Designs may not be a mainstream brand, but the company has made quite a name for itself in the mechanical keyboard world in recent years. The company’s previous releases, the high-end custom Mode Eighty tenkeyless (TKL), which you can easily configure to cost over $600 — without keycaps and switches

Meet Pixy, Snap’s little flying companion. Pixy is a mini drone that can act as a camera sidekick when you can’t ask someone to take a video of you. It’s yellow, it’s cute and it’ll be available in the U.S. and in France for $229.99. “Today, we’re taking the power and magic of the Snap

As humanity prepares to return to the Moon (“to stay,” as they remind us constantly), there’s a lot of infrastructure that needs to be built to make sure astronauts are safe and productive on the lunar surface. Without GPS, navigation and mapping is a lot harder — and NASA is working with lidar company Aeva

Cultivated meat, grown in a bioreactor rather than out on the range, might be one of the big food trends of the decade. But it’s relying on tech built around multiplying yeast and bacteria cells, not animal tissue — and Unicorn Biotechnologies wants to change that with new equipment created with mass food production in