Technology news

Samsung just announced the 2018 version of its Family Hub smart refrigerator, and this year’s model adds deeper support for Samsung’s Bixby voice assistant and even adds SmartThings integration and AKG speakers “for sound that is deep in bass and rich in mid-range.” We might be running out of things to add to a refrigerator.The new Family Hub can connect to and control third-party devices that are part of the SmartThings smart home ecosystem such as lights, thermostats,

I don’t know how many ways to interact with Alexa is ideal. Three devices scattered throughout your home? Two dozen? Every cell in your body replaced with a cheerful voice assistant? Who knows.
What I do know is that First Alert’s new Onelink Safe & Sound smoke alarm and carbon monoxide detector, as spotted by CNET, is an interesting way to get more Alexa in your life. By mounting Onelink to your ceiling (it needs to be hardwired, but there’s a backup battery) you get &ldq

Smart light switches that can be controlled through Alexa or Google Assistant are nothing new, but the iDevices Instinct takes things a step further: it actually has Alexa built in, turning the switch itself into a miniature Amazon Echo, complete with an integrated speaker.So yes, you can use Alexa to turn your light switch on and off, directly from the light switch. But the built-in Alexa also means you can get the news, check the weather, or search for recipes, too. There’s even a glowi

The Collection is a short documentary (via Kottke) by Adam Roffman that chronicles a unique piece of Hollywood history: tens of thousands of plates and blocks used to create the newspaper advertisements used for nearly every film that hit theaters before the 1980s.The documentary explains that two friends, DJ Ginsberg and Marilyn Wagner discovered and purchased the collection from an antique store in Nebraska in 1999. It contains nearly 60,000 blocks and plates used to print advertisements for

The Collection is a short documentary (via Kottke) by Adam Roffman that chronicles a unique piece of Hollywood history: tens of thousands of plates and blocks used to create the newspaper advertisements used for nearly every film that hit theaters before the 1980s.The documentary explains that two friends, DJ Ginsberg and Marilyn Wagner discovered and purchased the collection from an antique store in Nebraska in 1999. It contains nearly 60,000 blocks and plates used to print advertisements for

Samsung has made fridges with touchscreens before. LG has made fridges with doors that turn transparent to show you the inside. But this year at CES 2018, those two ideas are finally merging into one with LG’s new InstaView ThinQ smart refrigerator, which features a 29-inch touchscreen that users can turn transparent to look inside by knocking on it twice.LG actually tried this two years ago, with a version called the Smart Instaview Door-in-Door that ran a full version of Windows 10, but

It can be difficult to find time to finish a video game, especially if you only have a few hours a week to play. In our new biweekly column, Short Play, we suggest video games that can be started and finished in a weekend.A Mortician’s Tale is one of those video games where the term “game” doesn’t always feel like an appropriate descriptor. It’s more of an interactive meditation and self-reflection on death and what we do with bodies — but that doesn’t

DJI is introducing a new version of its smartphone stabilizer, the Osmo Mobile, that makes a handful of small changes to the original as well as one big one: its price. The Osmo Mobile 2 will start at $129, making it much more affordable than the original model (which started at $299, though you can find it now for closer to $200) as a way to keep your phone shake-free while shooting video.
The Osmo Mobile 2 doesn’t change the formula very much. As far as upgrades go, there’s really

The Consumer Electronics Show won’t have any female keynote speakers this year after weeks of attempting to add some diversity to the lineup, according to a report from Fast Company. All six top positions will instead be filled by male CEOs: Intel’s Brian Krzanich, Ford’s Jim Hackett, Huawei’s Richard Yu, Turner’s John Martin, Hulu’s Randy Freer, and the Consumer Technology Association’s (CTA) Gary Shapiro.
The news is a blow to attendees of the show lo

From January 14th until Valentine’s Day, Alexa will offer dating advice to those who ask. Matchmaking company Three Day Rule put together 30 dating tips that Amazon Echo users can summon by saying, “Alexa, ask Three Day Rule for today’s tip.” Three Day Rule’s advice runs the gamut from swiping fatigue on apps to encouraging you to talk to strangers in real life.TDR’s advice is meant to get you out of your comfort zone and away from habits that could be &ldquo

Awards season is up and running this weekend with the 75th Golden Globe Awards, which will kick things off with Hollywood’s least serious award show. But even if winning a Golden Globe isn’t considered as much of an accomplishment as winning an Oscar, the Globes can often indicate which way the Hollywood winds are blowing. Here’s everything you need to know to enjoy the red carpet.Who’s the host?
Seth Meyers, who you may know from his NBC late-night show, the aptly named

When it comes to bonobos, nice guys finish last. Researchers tested the animals with different social scenarios and in each, the bonobos preferred to make friends with bullies.Bonobos, along with chimpanzees, are our closest animal relatives, but humans don’t show quite the same level of shrewdness. Even very young babies can tell the difference between nice characters and mean ones, and they typically prefer the characters that cooperate. (That said, it’s not until age six that the

Nintendo will begin selling bundles of the neon green / neon pink pair of Joy-Con controllers that were originally included exclusively with the limited-edition Splatoon 2 version of the Switch released last August, as spotted by SlashGear.Nintendo announced the news via Twitter on Friday, telling customers to expect the pair to be available in stores later this month. No price was announced, but they’ll likely sell for the same $79.99 that other Joy-Con pairs cost. Nintendo also hasn&rsq

On Sunday, SpaceX is set to launch perhaps its most secretive payload yet: a classified government satellite built by defense contractor Northrop Grumman. The purpose of the mission, codenamed Zuma, is essentially unknown. It’s unclear what kind of spacecraft is going up, or which government agency the launch is for. All we really know is that Zuma is scheduled to go into lower Earth orbit on top of a Falcon 9 rocket out of Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The launch has had some trouble getting

A couple of years ago, LG Display showed off an intensely futuristic 18-inch OLED display that could be bent and rolled up just like a newspaper. Today, that prototype has grown to 65 inches in size, with the company announcing that it’s managed to scale up the tech to the dimensions of a large TV. At CES 2018, LG Display will be demonstrating the new 65-inch rollable OLED prototype, which also happens to have UHD (aka 4K) resolution. Photo: LG Display
Why would you want to roll up a TV?

Intel announced this week that it’ll have chips ready within the year for the next generation of Wi-Fi — what’s known as 802.11ax. This new generation is supposed to faster, of course, but mostly it’s meant to perform better in environments with lots and lots of connected devices; so things like public hotspots, but also your house if you just have a ton of phones and tablets and smart gadgets lying around.
But even though Intel says it’s going to start shipping 80