In an age when screens rule everything, the Sidephone SP-01 is a quiet protest. This small phone returns to fundamentals with a candybar appearance and a tactile keypad beneath a tiny touchscreen. It was designed by a small, simplicity-focused team and runs a bespoke version of Android that prioritizes calls, messages, and a few key apps. Pre-orders for US customers opened recently for $249, with deliveries expected later this year.
Glubux settles into a quiet corner of the internet, where hobbyists frequently tell stories about discovering hidden gems in old tech and realizing their fantasies of living off the grid. Back in late 2016, he posted an update on the Second Life Storage forum, informing people about the commencement of his project. He had 1.4 kilowatts of solar panels on his roof, an old forklift battery, a charge controller, and an inverter, which was roughly the starting point. A few months earlier, he had started collecting various varieties of outdated laptop batteries. By November, he had around 650 of them. just one aim in mind: build a system that provided everything his house needed without using a single watt from the grid.
Touchscreens today offer crisp pictures, but the experience of running your finger across glass is still a pretty dull affair. Northwestern University engineers have come up with something that might just change that…a wristband-like device that slips over your fingertip and simulates the feel of scratchy fabric or smooth metal on the same screen. They’ve called it VoxeLite, and it makes digital swiping feel a lot more like the real thing.
Meta has spent years striving to connect the digital and real worlds, and with Hyperscape, they have finally brought that quest into your living room. The company released this tool last fall, but it was only available to single users; starting this week, you can add your friends. Users can share links to their homes, kitchens, or closets and invite up to 8 people along for the ride, whether to catch up or play a game.
In a world where premium headphones often demand a premium paycheck, the Beats Studio Pro steps in with a quiet confidence. This over-ear model, priced at $139 on sale (down from $350), promise the kind of active noise cancellation and audio punch that echoes Apple’s AirPods Max, yet they arrive at a fraction of that model’s $549 tag.
Genesis took the covers off the Magma GT concept at a 10th anniversary party in the sun-kissed curves of Le Castellet, France, that felt more like a formal announcement than a true event to commemorate a decade in business. This mid-engined monster is Genesis’s boldest try yet at constructing a pure sports car, a two-seater that has quietly hinted at track days and twisty backroads equally, and the concept itself gives a pretty strong clue that Genesis aims to field its own entries at the GT racing level.
Bethesda Softworks has revealed a full-size reproduction of the Pip-Boy 3000, the tattered wrist computer that let you traverse the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. They collaborated with The Wand Company, a group recognized for transforming game props into real-world gadgets. To build this stunning piece, they worked directly from the original 3D model. Pre-orders opened last week, bringing fans back into the series’ harsh world just before the second season of the Prime Video drama is ready to begin. At $299.99, you get a lot of nostalgia, and it’s set to ship next June.
Google just launched Nano Banana Pro this morning, and its unique approach to image production is already making waves. Consider it a more robust, user-friendly version of its image editing / generation tools, the kind that achieves as close to ‘human-like’ perfection as possible without actually being alive. This new function has been stealthily introduced into Google’s Gemini app and a few other major areas in Google’s portfolio, but it is the type of development that will take many off guard.
Astronomers have long been searching for the faint lights of dying stars, those huge, short-lived fireballs that blaze brightly before fading away into the galaxy’s dark corners. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has now given us a look inside one such system, Apep, a trio of stars 8,000 light years away in a long, agonizing waltz. This mid-infrared image is raw and unprocessed, showing four shells of carbon dust spiraling outward in a tangled mess like an unraveled rope.
Honor is continually pushing the boundaries of how we hold our phones. Now comes the Robot Phone, a prototype that transforms your smartphone into a completely new type of companion you can’t imagine living without. I just returned from Honor’s User Carnival in China, complete with a mechanical arm that sprouts out of its back like a magic trick.