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2025 Audi S5 and A5 first drive: Five-door is the new four-door

Audi provided flights from Washignton, DC, to Denver and accommodation so Ars could drive the A5 and S5, as well as the Q5 and SQ5. Ars does not accept paid editorial content. ASPEN, Colo.—The SUV might be the dominant design in the American automobile market, but it hasn't completely taken over. At Audi, there is still life in the sedan. The old A4 four-door is no more—at least for a while or until Audi redoes its nomenclature yet again. If you want a small Audi four-door, you need to step dow

If this OnePlus 15 camera leak is true, OnePlus might be making a critical mistake

Ryan Haines / Android Authority The OnePlus 13 is, without a doubt, one of my favorite Android phones available today — and for a multitude of reasons. Its design is great, performance is outstanding, and battery life is amazing. Unlike a lot of past OnePlus phones, the OnePlus 13’s cameras are just as good (if not better) than the rest of its flagship competitors. And that’s why the latest OnePlus 15 leak has me worried. Earlier this week, a well-known leaker teased a few details about the u

The Xbox Ally's Biggest Specs Upgrade Could Just Be Better Windows 11 for Handhelds

The same thing that makes Windows gaming handhelds desirable also holds them back. It's never been the hardware. The designs aren't perfect in a lot of the devices -- even the best of the lot, the Asus ROG Ally and ROG Ally X, which are the basis of the forthcoming ROG Xbox Ally -- but they're generally playable. The culprit has always been Windows. It simply isn't an operating system designed for a dedicated gaming handheld, and that needs to change. Of course, we'd all love the Xbox Ally to

9 Best Smart Shades, Blinds, and Curtains (2025), Tested and Reviewed

Tailor-Made vs. Off-the-Shelf: Few things look smarter than perfectly fitted shades in a window frame, and few things look worse than shades that don’t quite fit. If you’re lucky enough to have window sizes that match the exact proportions of off-the-shelf shades then go for it, but most folks will be better served by going the made-to-order route. The downside is that tailor-made options are always going to be more expensive. Measure Properly: Look at your chosen manufacturer’s website to find

Why AI hardware needs to be open

Now it’s mounting a powerful second act, joined by a wave of AI open-source enthusiasts. This time around the stakes are higher, and we need to give it the support it never had. In 2024 the AI leader Hugging Face developed an open-source platform for AI robots, which already has 3,500+ robot data sets and draws thousands of participants from every continent to join giant hackathons. Raspberry Pi went public on the London Stock Exchange for $700 million. After a hiatus, Maker Faire came back; th

Topics: ai hands maker open world

My favorite portable charger for travel has a handy feature missing from competitors

ZDNET's key takeaways The InfinaCore P3 Pro is available now for $129. It's a USB travel charger and 10,000 mAh portable power bank rolled into one, with a handy Qi2 wireless charger built into the unit. It commands a premium price View now at Infinacore Travel chargers and power banks have become a staple of my travel kit. They give me the ability to keep things topped up when out and about -- and during those unexpected delays -- while giving my ever-growing tech collection a full recharge

10 tiny gadgets I never leave home without (and how they work)

My keychain essentials. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNET I've collected my fair share of multitools and gadgets, but I've lost track of how often I've needed one -- only to realize it's sitting at home or in the car. Carrying a full toolbox everywhere just isn't practical. What I do have with me almost all the time, though, is my keychain -- and it turns out, it's the perfect way to keep essential tools within reach. Also: Are Amazon Basics tools any good? I bought a bunch to find out, and you'd

Next-gen Xbox to support Steam, Epic, and more – consoles will run on AMD chips

Something to look forward to: Xbox president Sarah Bond has confirmed that Microsoft's next game console will support titles from multiple digital storefronts and maintain backward compatibility. Additionally, a newly announced agreement with AMD suggests that an official Xbox handheld is still in development. All of Microsoft's upcoming consoles (whatever they are) are expected to be AMD powered. Microsoft's hardware-agnostic video game business model and its responses to Valve's Steam Deck ha

Nation Cringes as Man Goes on TV to Declare That He's in Love With ChatGPT

Public declarations of emotion are one thing — but going on national television to declare that you're in love with your AI girlfriend is another entirely. In an interview with CBS News, a man named Chris Smith described himself as a former AI skeptic who found himself becoming emotionally attached to a version of ChatGPT he customized to flirt with him — a situation that startled both him and his human partner, with whom he shares a child. Towards the end of 2024, as Smith told the broadcaste

macOS Tahoe 26 does away with the ‘Mickey Mouse glove’ cursor

A few days ago, Apple released its Design Resources files with the official assets for macOS Tahoe 26. Among the new materials, there’s one tiny, 15×17-pixel icon that will undoubtedly leave a few long-time Mac users feeling a little heartbroken. That cute glove hand cursor, which many called the “Mickey Mouse hand”? It’s gone. The change is part of a trend that has led many to question if Apple is losing its whimsy More observant Mac users will know that every couple of years, Apple makes a

Hades II adds more combat options in its third major early access update

Hades II announced its third update today. The sequel to 2020 indie game darling Hades is technically still in early access on PC and Mac, but has been getting some beefy updates ahead of its expected official release later this year. The Unseen Update is a free, automatic update that mostly focuses on new combat development. There's a new Vow of Rivals that allows players to challenge more powerful Guardian foes. All of the main weapons have received hidden aspects that offer new forms and fig

LLMs pose an interesting problem for DSL designers

The most exciting part of Programming Languages (PL) research for me has always been in Programming Language Design. By carefully crafting a language with a syntax and semantics tailored for a specific domain, PL designers can provide an interface for end users that seamlessly aligns with the sensibilities and intuitions of practitioners, allowing users to focus on the "interesting" parts of a problem and tackle larger and more complex problems. Instead of writing a verbose sequence of API cal

WhatsApp’s rollout of ads will change the app forever

is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO. This week, WhatsApp did something its founders said it would never do: it’s putting advertisements inside the app. It ends WhatsApp’s decade-plus run of offering an ad-free messaging and calling experience. Meta, which acquired WhatsApp in 2014, attempted to justify the decision by saying ads will be sequestered to its “Update” tab, where you’ll se

Minecraft: Chase the Skies improves graphics, adds Happy Ghast mob

Minecraft is a game about breaking and placing blocks. At first, players built simple structures to protect themselves from nocturnal monsters. But as the game grew, players began working together to create wonderful, imaginative things. It can also be about adventuring with friends or watching the sunrise over a blocky ocean. It's pretty. Brave players battle terrible creatures in The Nether, which is more scary than pretty. Or, if you'd prefer something calmer, you can visit a land of giant m

X sues New York over hate speech disclosure law

Social media company X has filed a lawsuit against the state of New York over a law governing hate speech. The social network's Global Government Affairs account posted about the suit, claiming the law's required disclosures infringe on First Amendment protections for free speech. The Stop Hiding Hate Act, which is slated to take effect this week, would require social media companies to report on how they define and moderate content including hate speech, misinformation, disinformation, harassm

Experiencing Hair Loss? This First-Ever Prescription Gummy for Hair Regrowth May Be the Solution

Hers, a telehealth company that provides online healthcare services and products for women, announced on Tuesday the launch of its Biotin plus Minoxidil Gummy, the first-of-its-kind prescription gummy formulated to support hair regrowth. Available through forhers.com, this gummy combines prescription-strength minoxidil, the only FDA-approved ingredient for female hair loss, with biotin, a popular vitamin for supporting healthy skin, hair and nails. Minoxidil is clinically proven to regrow thicke

Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

Iranian state television on Tuesday afternoon urged the country’s public to remove the messaging platform WhatsApp from their smartphones, alleging the app — without offering specific evidence — gathered user information to send to Israel. In a statement, WhatsApp said it was “concerned these false reports will be an excuse for our services to be blocked at a time when people need them the most.” WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption, meaning a service provider in the middle can’t read a message.

Programming Language Design in the Era of LLMs: A Return to Mediocrity?

The most exciting part of Programming Languages (PL) research for me has always been in Programming Language Design. By carefully crafting a language with a syntax and semantics tailored for a specific domain, PL designers can provide an interface for end users that seamlessly aligns with the sensibilities and intuitions of practitioners, allowing users to focus on the "interesting" parts of a problem and tackle larger and more complex problems. Instead of writing a verbose sequence of API cal

Everything to Remember About ‘Foundation’ Season 2 Ahead of Season 3

Foundation season three will pick up 152 years after the end of season two, which means a new set of supporting characters is on the way. However, given Foundation’s fondness for clones (be they organic or digital) and robots—as well as people who endure extended cryosleep—all the main faces will also be back. That time jump will advance the action to a time of great unrest, as predicted in season two by Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell) using a combination of mathematics, the “prime radiant” quantum

ChatGPT's Voice Feature Makes It Feel More Human Than Ever

After years of dealing with voice assistants that constantly misheard me or cut me off mid-sentence, I didn't expect much when I tapped the little wavelength icon to try ChatGPT's Voice Mode. I figured it would be another feature that sounded cool but fell flat in real use. But this one surprised me. Voice Mode doesn't just spit out answers. It actually feels like a real conversation. It picks up on pauses, mumbled thoughts, and even those filler words like "uhhh" without breaking the flow. Whe

Four reasons why it’s a surprisingly bad time to buy a gaming handheld

is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget. I love modern handheld gaming, and I recommend it to anyone and everyone. Just maybe not today? If you decided today was the day to finally drop hundreds of dollars on your first handheld, I might advise you to wait. Four reasons: The best handhelds are sold out The second-best handhelds just got more expensive Third-tier handhelds are

The hamburger-menu icon today: Is it recognizable?

Summary: Hamburger menus are a more familiar pattern today than 10 years ago, but the same old best practices for hidden navigation still apply. Few icons in digital design have sparked as much debate over the last decade as the hamburger. The hamburger menu — which earned its nickname because of its abstract, stacked, hamburger-like appearance — was originally embraced as a clever way to save space on small screens by hiding the main navigation behind a single button. While this approach declu

PSA: WhatsApp for iPhone now also lets you copy part of a message

If you got excited by yesterday’s news that iOS 26 will let you copy parts of a text message in Messages, but aren’t running the beta and don’t want to feel left out, here’s some good news: you can already do that on WhatsApp. Since version 25.16.81, WhatsApp has offered partial text selection on iPhone, letting you highlight and copy just the specific section of a message you want. To use it, long-press the message bubble, then press and hold again on the text itself. This brings up the famil

This 1-800 number will generate ChatGPT images, if for some reason you need that

The discourse around artificial intelligence has all been about pursuing the bleeding edge, pushing the tech into the future as fast as possible. So maybe it should be refreshing that OpenAI's latest announcement feels almost quaintly analog. Starting today, users can tap into the company's image generation by texting 1-800-ChatGPT on WhatsApp. The post on X announcing this new option for using the ChatGPT AI chatbot specifies that the feature is "now available to everyone." I'm not sure what p

How to share your location on Android quickly - via text or Google Maps

Lance Whitney / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET Have you ever been somewhere and wanted to share that location with someone via your Android phone? If so, you might have assumed it would be as simple as "Dropping a pin" with your iPhone. Although it's not complicated, it is not exactly straightforward. Plus: There are two different ways to do this. Fun times. Also: I upgraded to Android 16 - here's what I love and what's still missing Let me help you out here, so you can easily share your locat

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

Early animated Disney character This article is about the character. For works with the title, see Oswald the Lucky Rabbit filmography Fictional character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (also known as Oswald the Rabbit, Oswald Rabbit, and Ozzie[8][9][10]) is an animated cartoon character created in 1927 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks for Universal Pictures. He starred in several animated short films released to theaters from 1927 to 1938. Twenty-seven animated Oswald shorts were produced at the Walt D

Ethan Hunt Doesn’t Die in the New ‘Mission Impossible,’ But They Considered It

When the eighth Mission: Impossible film changed its title to “The Final Reckoning,” we all had the same thought: Tom Cruise’s character, Ethan Hunt, was going to die. It would have been the most obvious way to add some real finality to the franchise, but we now know that doesn’t happen. Instead, Ethan lives, as does his sworn enemy, the Entity. And, in a new interview, writer-director Christopher McQuarrie discussed those crucial decisions and many more. In an extended, spoiler-filled conversa

ChatGPT search just got smarter - but can it replace Google for you yet?

Dmitry Kovalchuk/Getty Watch out, Google. OpenAI has beefed up its ChatGPT search tool to try to win over more people. And it may be working. In a new support article published last Friday, OpenAI described a recent upgrade designed to improve the quality and performance of its search option. In general, ChatGPT search has been enhanced to provide more comprehensive and up-to-date responses. Based on its own testing, OpenAI said that users preferred the new search process over the previous exp

Fujifilm X half: Is it the perfect family camera?

When Fujifilm announced the Fujifilm X half, the internet was literally divided into two halves. Some people were disappointed that it offered limited features for its high price, while others were delighted and found it intriguing. In fact, some even predicted that the X half would sell out quickly. As someone who used Fujifilm cameras for a decade, starting with a X-T1 and then moving on to the X100F, X-H1, X-T30, and X100V, and finally switching to a Leica M11, I have some thoughts about the

For Almost Free, PopSockets and Anker Come Together With This Easy-to-Hold Magnetic Phone Charger

Save 50% on the PopSockets x Anker MagGo 5,000mAh portable magnetic battery charger over at Best Buy. This collaboration between PopSockets and Anker is a match made in heaven. If your phone is new enough that it supports magnetic wireless charging, then you can pick up this Anker MagGo 5,000mAh portable magnetic battery charger that has an integrated PopSockets grip on the back. Right now, Best Buy has it discounted down by 50%. It’s normally $70, but you can score one in either black or clear