Latest Tech News

Stay updated with the latest in technology, AI, cybersecurity, and more

Filtered by: sm Clear Filter

If You've Breathed Wildfire Smoke, Scientists Just Found Something Horrifying

Image by Getty / Futurism Studies Have you gone outside recently and smelled an acrid odor, perhaps accompanied by a hellish orange sky? Check the news, and you were likely downwind of massive wildfires like those in the Canadian province of Manitoba or the Florida Everglades— an increasingly regular event as millions of people find themselves in the path of noxious smoke, sometimes from a country away. Wildfires are becoming more common than ever amid the ravages of climate change — and thos

I tried the Google Pixel Watch 4 - and these key features made it feel indispensable

Kerry Wan/ZDNET ZDNET key takeaways Pixel Watch 4 New features: faster charging, satellite link, and health AI. First Pixel Watch with a replaceable battery for sustainability. Get more in-depth ZDNET tech coverage: Add us as a preferred Google source on Chrome and Chromium browsers. The time has finally come for Google Pixel users. A new lineup of Google phones, earbuds, and, my personal favorite, smartwatches, is coming to Android users, Google announced at its Made by Google event earli

Google’s Next Smart Speaker Is All About AI

Whether by accident or as a covert tease, Google showed a glimmer of what Google smart speakers have in store. This week, during Google’s annual Pixel hardware event, a never-before-seen speaker slipped into a prerecorded video, and now Android Headlines says it’s confirmed that said speaker is, in fact, of the Google Home variety. Android Headlines says it has seen additional images of the speaker, which will come in four colors, including Obsidian, Porcelain, Jade, and an unnamed red color. J

Get a Look at a Gorgeous New Animated Sci-Fi Movie With One Hell of a Cast

Spawn of the Living Dead is shuffling forward with some new cast members. The third season of Percy Jackson has found its Olympian huntress. Plus, get a look at what’s coming on Peacemaker. Spoilers, away! Minecraft 2 During a recent interview with People, Kirsten Dunst jokingly pitched her participation in the upcoming sequel to Minecraft, adding, “maybe I can just make a movie where I don’t lose money?“ Spawn of the Living Dead/Organism 46-B: The Unseen According to Deadline, Casper Van Di

Trump administration official says some CHIPS Act companies won't need to give up equity

Last week, the Trump administration said it might take a stake in Intel in exchange for the $10.86 billion in federal grants the company is receiving from the Chips and Science (CHIPS) Act. However, not all companies receiving funds under the same program will need to give up equity, The Wall Street Journal has reported. Companies like TSMC and Micron that increased their US investments won't have any additional obligations, according to a government official familiar with the matter. Ealier, c

The best smart TV VPNs of 2025: Expert tested and reviewed

A virtual private network (VPN) can allow you to access geo-locked content and streaming libraries on your smart TV. As a bonus, and perhaps the main reason I use a VPN on my own TV, is the ability to block ads. My favorites include NordVPN, ExpressVPN, and Surfshark, and I'm certain you can find a VPN that will fit you and your smart TV. When looking for a smart TV VPN, consider factors such as its impact on streaming speed and online connectivity, the availability of native smart TV apps -- w

Nvidia’s Huang says TSMC among all-time greats: Buying its stock is ‘very smart’

Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO of Nvidia Corp., speaks during a news conference in Taipei on May 21, 2025. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Friday showered praise on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. on a visit to Taiwan, saying that anybody looking to take a stake in the company would be "very smart." This comes at a time when the U.S. administration has signaled interest in acquiring stakes in tech companies, especially those in receipt of funding under the U.S. CHIPS Act. Huang, who said

Google’s mysterious new smart speaker could offer spatial surround sound

Google TL;DR The mysterious smart speaker that appeared during Made by Google is a real, unannounced device. The speaker is said to come with Gemini installed. Users will reportedly be able to pair it with a Google TV Streamer. If you watched yesterday’s Made by Google event and thought you saw an unfamiliar piece of hardware, you weren’t imagining things. A device that looks like a mix between an Apple HomePod Mini and an Amazon Echo Dot briefly appeared in the stream. As it turns out, this

Why I love my Le Creuset sauté pan

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy is a senior reviewer at The Verge covering the smart home, Internet of Things, and, as she puts it, “as many kitchen gadgets as I can get my hands on.” In her four years here, she’s tested everything from smart locks, lights, and doorbells to robot vacuums (some with arms), robot lawnmowers, and an actual home robot. But, she says, “the heart of my home is my kitchen, and I love a good smart kitchen gadget. I’ve tested a smart trash can, smart mixer, smart pizza oven, sma

Topics: creuset le pan smart use

I wore the Pixel Watch 4 - and these key features made me not want to take it off

Kerry Wan/ZDNET ZDNET key takeaways Pixel Watch 4 New features: faster charging, satellite link, health AI. First Pixel Watch with replaceable battery for sustainability. Get more in-depth ZDNET tech coverage: Add us as a preferred Google source on Chrome and Chromium browsers. The time has finally come for Google Pixel users. A new lineup of Google phones, earbuds, and, my personal favorite, smartwatches, is coming to Android users, Google announced at its Made by Google event on Wednesda

Trump's Nvidia and Intel meddling is a 'scattershot method of crony capitalism': Walter Isaacson

President Donald Trump's dealings with Intel and Nvidia amount to a "scattershot method of crony capitalism," Walter Isaacson said Thursday. "That state capitalism often evolves into crony capitalism, where you have favored companies and industries that pay tribute to the leader, and that is a recipe for not only disaster, but just sort of a corrupt sense of messiness," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box." The Tulane University professor, widely known for his recent Elon Musk biography, argued that th

7 clever ways to automate your home with smart plugs

Maria Diaz/ZDNET Get more in-depth ZDNET tech coverage: Add us as a preferred Google source on Chrome and Chromium browsers. Remember The Clapper? The plug-in staple may have made for a catchy jingle in the 1980s, but it could also be considered as a primitive ancestor of today's smart plug -- that is, if you can say anything from a few decades ago is primitive. Smart plugs offer greater convenience than The Clapper ever did, letting you control your devices from an app on your phone, your voi

Best Standing Desks of 2025

What I like: When cable organization is the goal, the Autonomous SmartDesk 5 Pro is the desk. All of the cable management items, like a 3M cable organizer, cable management tray and magnetized cable runner, come included with the desk. With all the cables managed and out of the way, you have a lot of desktop space to play with. The SmartDesk 5 Pro is an electric motor desk that is quiet, quick and very easy to use and has three memory options. When you're choosing your heights and free-adjusti

Google's Smart Home Devices Are Finally Getting Gemini's AI Skills

Gemini for Home will replace Google Assistant in the company's line of smart displays and speakers, a step up in capabilities for its smart home devices. The announcement was made on Wednesday to coincide with its Made By Google event in New York. Gemini for Home will use AI models tuned for home tasks and work with any member of the household, including guests, according to a company press release. It'll activate with the same "hey Google" phrase, but Gemini for Home can better understand cont

CodeSignal’s new AI tutoring app Cosmo wants to be the ‘Duolingo for job skills’

Want smarter insights in your inbox? Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get only what matters to enterprise AI, data, and security leaders. Subscribe Now CodeSignal Inc., the San Francisco-based skills assessment platform trusted by Netflix, Meta, and Capital One, launched Cosmo on Wednesday, a mobile learning application that transforms spare minutes into career-ready skills through artificial intelligence-powered micro-courses. The app represents a strategic pivot for CodeSignal, which bu

AI Assistants Are Just Alexa All Over Again

Hundreds of billions of dollars have been poured into the development of artificial intelligence models and the infrastructure needed to support them, all with the promise that AI will eventually take over everything. But in the average person’s day-to-day life, AI has yet to serve as much more than a slightly smarter Siri. According to new data collected by polling firm YouGov, even though companies have made a big to-do about infusing smart assistants with AI brains, people have barely changed

Gemini for Home is coming to replace Assistant — but is your smart home ready for its changes?

Jimmy Westenberg / Android Authority TL;DR Gemini for Home begins early access this October. While it sounds like you’ll have the option to stick with Assistant for a while, Google is clear that Gemini for Home will eventually replace it. Gemini for Home is set to be available in both free and paid versions, though Google has yet to share more about its plans there. For the past couple years, Google has been working to flesh out its next-gen AI efforts, and offering us plenty of opportunitie

The Pixel 10 Pro has a smart home feature that might make it future-proof

TL;DR The Google Pixel 10 Pro includes a built-in Thread radio, a crucial piece of hardware for the future of the smart home. Thread is a low-power mesh network that offers a more reliable and faster connection for smart home devices compared to Wi-Fi. This inclusion future-proofs the phone, enabling it to directly control the growing number of Matter-compatible smart devices. Google’s commitment to seven years of software support for the new Pixel 10 series is bold, as the phone’s state-of-t

I tried Pixel Watch 4 - and these are my 7 favorite upgrades in Google's new watch

Kerry Wan/ZDNET ZDNET key takeaways Pixel Watch 4 launches Oct. 9 with no price increase. New features: faster charging, satellite link, health AI. First Pixel Watch with replaceable battery for sustainability. Get more in-depth ZDNET tech coverage: Add us as a preferred Google source on Chrome and Chromium browsers. The day has finally come for Pixel power users. A new lineup of Google phones, earbuds, and, my personal favorite, smartwatches, is coming to Android users, Google announced a

Astronomers Discover a Previously Hidden Moon Orbiting Uranus

Astronomers spotted a never-before-seen, bite-sized moon orbiting Uranus, bringing the ice giant’s follower count to 29. The moon is so small and faint—well below the detection threshold of NASA’s Voyager 2 probe—that scientists believe Uranus may host many more undiscovered, tiny moons. The moon, provisionally named S/2025 U1, first entered the view of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) on February 2, 2025. Further imaging led by the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) shows that it sits at

The James Webb Space Telescope Finds New Moon Orbiting Uranus

No joke: Science has found a new teeny, tiny moon orbiting Uranus. NASA announced on Tuesday that the James Webb Space Telescope found yet another moon floating around Uranus, an ice giant that already had 13 other known moons. The discovery was made thanks to images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. A team from the Southwest Research Institute noticed an unfamiliar object that appeared to be orbiting Uranus. The images have been stitched together in a slideshow on YouTube of the moon, w

These 8 rumored Pixel Watch features make it the Android wearable to beat in 2025

Matthew Miller/ZDNET Get more in-depth ZDNET tech coverage: Add us as a preferred Google source on Chrome and Chromium browsers. There's a big chance we'll be getting a new Google smartwatch soon -- and I mean tomorrow soon, as we're just a night away from the August Made by Google event, the tech giant's annual hardware showcase. Leading up to it, rumors and leaks of what's coming on this next generation of AI-infused devices are swirling. Also: I've owned every Google Pixel since the first

A Super-Energetic Neutrino That Reached Earth in 2023 Has Been Confirmed to Be Real. But Where Did It Come From?

In February 2023, a cosmic particle detector housed deep in the Mediterranean Sea recorded the arrival of a neutrino with approximately 20 to 30 times more energy than any other neutrino documented previously. Labelled KM3-230213A, the particle had a calculated energy of 220 petaelectronvolts (PeV), far greater than the 10 PeV of the previously most energetic neutrino. The finding generated a lot of excitement among physicists, but raised also many questions. Neutrinos are the most abundant par

This AirTag accessory completes my lineup of keychain gadgets (and it's very durable)

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNET Get more in-depth ZDNET tech coverage: Add us as a preferred Google source on Chrome and Chromium browsers. In November of 2022, I decided I needed to organize my pocket EDC (everyday carry) gear. As part of that reorganization, I picked up a KeySmart Air key organizer as a way to both keep my keys sorted and also attach an AirTag to them. Also: 10 tiny tools I carry with me everywhere - how they work So, here we are, almost three years on, and I'm still using th

Meta’s First ‘Real’ Smart Glasses Have One Huge Problem

When Google Glass came stumbling onto the scene in 2013, people were taken aback. Not only did Google’s smart glasses, with their bordering-on-novel camera, present new and somewhat icky questions about personal privacy, but they also crossed an even more controversial line: they looked really, really dorky. Fast forward more than 10 years into the future, and all of those hangups (at least on the surface) seem to be in the rearview. Take Meta, for example. Sales of Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses

Critical Cache Poisoning Vulnerability in Dnsmasq

[Dnsmasq-discuss] [Security Report] Critical Cache Poisoning Vulnerability in Dnsmasq Dear Dnsmasq Security Team, We would like to responsibly disclose a critical cache poisoning vulnerability affecting the Dnsmasq DNS software. The issue allows attackers to inject arbitrary malicious DNS resource records and poison domain names without requiring advanced techniques, only by leveraging a single special character. Report Summary Vulnerability Type: Logic flaw in cache poisoning defense Affected

We could make Rosie the Robot, but should we?

is a senior reviewer focused on smart home and connected tech, with over twenty years of experience. She has written previously for Wirecutter, Wired, Dwell, BBC, and US News. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Robots are coming, but are we ready for them? All the big consumer tech companies are working on robotic companions for our homes. There’s Amazon’s Astro, Samsung’s Ballie, LG’s AI Agent, and whatever it is that Apple is dreaming up i

The Mysterious Origins of the Most Energetic Neutrino Ever Detected

In February 2023, a cosmic particle detector housed deep in the Mediterranean Sea recorded the arrival of a neutrino with approximately 20 to 30 times more energy than any other neutrino documented previously. Labelled KM3-230213A, the particle had a calculated energy of 220 petaelectronvolts (PeV), far greater than the 10 PeV of the previously most energetic neutrino. The finding generated a lot of excitement among physicists, but raised also many questions. Neutrinos are the most abundant par

Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

DENVER (AP) — The conservative network Newsmax will pay $67 million to settle a lawsuit accusing it of defaming a voting equipment company by spreading lies about President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, according to documents filed Monday. The settlement comes after Fox News Channel paid $787.5 million to settle a similar lawsuit in 2023 and Newsmax paid what court papers describe as $40 million to settle a libel lawsuit from a different voting machine manufacturer, Smartmatic, which also

This Linux distro puts more than 20 desktops a click away

Jack Wallen/ZDNET ZDNET's key takeaways Sparky Linux is a lightweight distribution based on Debian 13. With Sparky Linux, you can install from over 20 desktops. Sparky Linux is a great option, even for new Linux users. Get more in-depth ZDNET tech coverage: Add us as a preferred Google source on Chrome and Chromium browsers. Sparky Linux is well-known as a very good lightweight Linux distribution. Typically, Sparky defaults to the LXQt desktop, but offers versions with MATE, Xfce, and KDE