GoKawiil
Tech News
When a router runs out of Ethernet ports for devices like smart TVs, consoles, NAS drives and desktop PCs, the fix is an inexpensive plug-and-play Ethernet switch rather than a router upgrade. The switch connects to one of the router's LAN ports and instantly adds four, seven, 15 or more wired connections to the network.
A WIRED writer used Google's Gemini platform to create AI chatbots modeled on two of her editors, Brian Barrett and Sophie Kleeman, hoping the clones would help her draft better work and understand her bosses' preferences. The experiment, done with the editors' reluctant permission, quickly produced awkward and unexpected results as the bots misjudged tone and expectations.
Despite the shift toward wireless devices, many high-end and gaming keyboards remain wired or offer no Bluetooth option at all, largely because of measurable input delay. Bluetooth connections introduce a few extra milliseconds of lag between a keypress and its registration on a computer, which barely matters for typing but can affect gaming or music production. A 2.4GHz USB dongle connection offers a faster alternative to Bluetooth, often approaching wired performance for latency-sensitive tasks.
WIRED polled 634 women working in the technology industry about their daily experiences, gathering candid feedback on workplace culture and emerging tools. Respondents described ongoing friction with male-dominated office dynamics even as executives increasingly integrate AI into their routines.
A longtime WIRED writer and editor published a personal essay recounting a 17-year career marked by repeated instances of sexism, including being paid less than a male predecessor, having her parenting fitness questioned by bosses, and working at a publication where men appeared on 70 covers versus four for women. She traces her discomfort with some men in the industry back to her early days interning at WIRED in 2009, when the newsroom lacked female editors and reinforced narratives crediting men as the primary innovators in tech.
Testing from Polling Rate Test shows Microsoft's Xbox controllers report input at roughly the same 125Hz rate whether connected via USB cable or the proprietary Xbox Wireless Adapter, translating to about eight milliseconds of potential delay in either case. Bluetooth connections, by contrast, add an extra four to eight milliseconds of lag, varying with interference from nearby wireless devices.
WIRED is organizing the WIRED World Fair, a single-day event on November 4 at the Sacred Space venue in Miami's Wynwood district. The gathering will feature talks with figures from biotech, politics, and AI, plus appearances from The Onion, a dolphin-communication researcher, a screening of a Musk documentary, astronaut training simulations, and robots. Additional programming and immersive art installations, including work from Marina Abramović, will be announced as the date approaches.
Amazon has scheduled its fall Prime Big Deal Days sale for Tuesday and Wednesday, October 6 and 7, running for 48 hours starting at 3:01 am Eastern. New waves of deals will be released three times daily, supplemented by sporadic Lightning Deals throughout the event. WIRED's Reviews team has published a guide explaining sale timing, membership requirements, and how to spot genuine discounts amid the promotional noise.
A WIRED writer created a project called PitchFly using an open-source connectome mapping 165,112 neurons and 125 million synapses from a male fruit fly's brain. By feeding it hundreds of the outlet's top-performing headlines converted into numerical representations, the simulated neural circuitry began remixing patterns into new, often absurd story pitches. The system doesn't understand language—it's simply replicating firing patterns from real biological data to produce novel combinations.
WIRED has released a dedicated mobile app for iPhone and Android, available as a free download. The app bundles a personalized daily digest, video content, podcasts, narrated stories, and a comment section for reader discussion and live AMAs with journalists.
Spotify's new Lossless tier delivers CD-quality, uncompressed audio, but Bluetooth connections can't transmit a true lossless signal, meaning wireless earbuds and speakers won't benefit. Listeners need wired headphones, USB-C earbuds, wired computer speakers, or Wi-Fi-based Spotify Connect devices to actually hear the improved quality, and even then, cheap audio hardware may not reveal a noticeable difference.
A new comparison examines the practical differences between passive wired speaker setups and wireless Bluetooth systems, focusing on modularity, latency and cable management. It notes that wired systems let users swap components like amplifiers or speakers independently, while removing Bluetooth transmission delay from the audio chain. The piece also cautions that cables alone don't guarantee better sound quality if the source audio is already compressed.