LG’s AeroCatTower is designed to keep your kitty cozy and your air clean. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
What if your cat tower could weigh your furry friend, monitor its health, and help keep their pesky dander spores out of your air? That’s the idea behind LG’s new AeroCatTower, an air purifier with a cat-friendly dome-shaped seat on top for your feline to curl up in.
The company showcased the gadget at its CES 2025 booth this week, complete with some rather creepy-looking fake cats.
The tower also features a heater to keep your kitty cozy, and the second platform can be used to help elderly cats get up to the platform or for a second pet. The air purifier can adjust to a lower flow when there’s a feline on board — so as not to disturb — then ramp up when they leave to help clear the air.
Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
The seat has a scale and can monitor the cat’s health signs.
Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
The ThinQ app records weight and sleep time.
A built-in scale will keep track of their weight using LG ThinQ’s app, and here you can also see how long your friend has been sleeping ... so you can seriously sleep shame them. Lazy sods.
As with virtually everything being shown in LG’s booth at CES this year, there is no pricing or release date.
Apple’s handy location trackers are a no-brainer if you’re an iPhone user. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
If you’re the type of person who always forgets where they parked or put their car keys, it’s probably a good idea to invest in a location tracker like Apple’s AirTag. They can help you quickly locate just about anything, and they’re currently matching their lowest price to date. Right now, you can buy a four-pack at Amazon and Best Buy for just $69.99 ($29 off), which amounts to $17.50 apiece.
If you’re an iPhone owner looking for a Bluetooth tracker, Apple’s AirTags remain our top pick. That’s largely because the ultra wideband (UWB) trackers can tap into Apple’s extensive Find My network, which allows for ultra-precise tracking. Apple also offers several software perks that make it easier to recover lost items, including the ability to share the trackers with up to five people. Thanks to iOS 18.2, you’ll also soon be able to temporarily share the location of lost AirTags with more than 15 airlines — including United, which just recently rolled out support for the feature.
In terms of hardware, Apple’s AirTags offer user-replaceable batteries that last about a year, so you don’t need to keep buying a new tracker every time one dies. They’re also relatively durable, with an IP67 rating for water and dust resistance, allowing them to withstand a wide range of conditions.
Woot is selling the original Google Pixel Buds Pro for an all-time low of $109.99 ($90 off) until 9:59PM PT on January 7th. The comfortable wireless earbuds continue to offer great noise cancellation and sound, even if they’re not as powerful or as light as the second-gen model. They’re a particularly great option for Pixel phone owners, as they offer head-tracking spatial audio, native controls, and several exclusive features. Read our review.
Anker’s MagGo Wireless Charging Station (Foldable 3-in- 1)is available at Amazon for Prime members in select colors for $71.99 ($23 off), its best price to date. The macaron-like foldable pad uses a rubber strap to connect three wireless pucks, including a Qi2-certified 15W charger you can use to quickly juice a MagSafe-compatible smartphone. It also comes with a 5W Apple-certified Apple Watch charger and a 5W Qi puck (with a USB-C power input port), so you can charge a pair of AirPods.
Best Buy is selling the N-Edition of the 8BitDo Retro Mechanical Keyboard with a joystick for $69.99 ($30 off), which matches the bundle’s all-time low. As the name suggests, the NES-inspired mechanical keyboard comes with a joystick, along with a pair of programmable “Super Buttons.” The keyboard also offers clicky, hot-swappable switches and support for USB-C, Bluetooth, and even 2.4GHz wireless via a dongle.
iFixit has announced the Pro Tech Go Toolkit, a compact take on the popular Pro Tech kit. The Pro Tech Go is about half the size and weight but squeezes in iFixit’s most important tools for repairing everything from phones and laptops to game consoles.
The heart of the kit is a 32-bit screwdriver set, ranging from run-of-the-mill Phillips and flathead bits to specialized parts like the Pentalobe P2 and P5 security bits needed for accessing the innards of Apple hardware. They’re joined by a range of opening tools, including six picks, two pairs of tweezers, and a couple of spudgers.
Like the Pro Tech kit, the Pro Tech Go comes wrapped in a toughened fabric roll, only smaller at 160 x 100 x 52mm for added portability. Despite this, it still fits in a couple of spare tool slots, so you can add two of your own staples in case they’re not already included.
Image: iFixit
Just a casual day out with an old Canon and iFixit’s Pro Tech Go Toolkit in case of trouble.
“We designed this for people who fix in the real world,” says iFixit’s lead product engineer Brett Hartt. “It’s light, it’s compact, and it’s got what you need when repairs come calling — even if you’re not at your workbench.”
Consumers shopping for new smart home devices will soon be able to look for the official stamp of trust from the US government: the US Cyber Trust Mark.
Similar to how an Energy Star label on home appliances denotes a certain level of energy efficiency, the Cyber Trust Mark is meant to be a way for consumers to quickly understand that a connected device meets certain standards to secure it from cybersecurity threats. The standards cover things like whether a device issues software updates, how it securely moves data to the cloud, and how other devices are able to gain access to the product.
Image: Federal Communications Commission
Companies can voluntarily apply to use the logo by having their products tested by an accredited lab recognized by the Federal Communications Commission, showing that they meet the standards for the label. The label could be applied to Internet of Things (IoT) devices, including smart appliances, home security cameras, fitness trackers, and baby monitors.
Now that the label is launched, companies are able to submit their products to be tested. Anne Neuberger, deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, predicts that products with the Cyber Trust Mark will be on shelves by the end of the year.
“We know Americans are afraid,” Neuberger said on a press briefing call. “Consumers don’t have the confidence that they can connect a device at home and know that their private pictures and communications will be secure. So this program takes on that problem in a bipartisan and voluntary way.”
In addition to giving consumers a sense of security, the government hopes the labels will incentivize companies to raise the bar. The White House included statements from Amazon and Best Buy executives in its announcement of the launch. Amazon vice president Steve Downer says that “consumers will value seeing the U.S. Cyber Trust Mark both on product packaging and while shopping online,” and Best Buy head of enterprise privacy and data protection Michael Dolan says it’s “a positive step forward for consumers.”
“Americans buying home alarm systems and baby monitors need to know hackers can’t disable the alarm system remotely or hack in to watch their babies asleep,” Neuberger says. “Companies need to have an incentive to bake security into products, and the US government wants to give American consumers that confidence, and we welcome this voluntary mechanism to assure consumers and companies that products are cyber safe.”
The Panasonic-owned audio brand Technics makes some of the best wireless earbuds that most people have probably never heard of. For example, we found that the sound quality and active noise cancellation of the company’s stylish EAH-AZ80 earbuds equal that of the high-end options from bigger brands like Sony, Bose, and Sennheiser — if not better in some respects.
Now, Technics has launched a new pair of earbuds at CES 2025 in a bid to further that reputation. The Technics EAH-AZ100, which we should start seeing available for purchase today for $299.99, are the first wireless earbuds with the company’s proprietary fluid magnetic drivers. That’s not just a buzzword: according to Technics, there’s actual oil-like fluid with magnetic particles sitting between the 10mm driver and voice coil to keep distortion at bay.
Image: Panasonic
Technics swears there’s liquid in here somewhere.
We’ll have to take its word on that until we try them out for ourselves, but the brand says it tested the result with sound engineers, presumably with no complaints. Technics says they have a frequency response floor of 3Hz, which is a calming ultra-low binaural frequency that produces a bass result most people would have trouble hearing, but you may feel the low-rumbling vibration affect your body as you’re listening. For comparison’s sake, most headphones and earbuds (including the Sony WF-1000XM5 and other flagships) target the typical human frequency range of between 20Hz and 20,000Hz. In short, it sounds like we’re in for a wide but well-balanced sound with warm bass. The earbuds also support Dolby Atmos spatial audio head tracking tech.
The Technics EAH-AZ100 have three microphones in each bud to enable features like Voice Focus AI, which detects and amplifies your voice on calls while filtering out traffic noise, wind, and other external sounds. It uses similar tricks for active noise cancellation but goes a step further by detecting your ear shape for personalized tweaks. The result should be impressive if it’s anything like the AZ80’s top-notch noise cancellation. Whether the new transparency mode sounds any better than the older pair’s unnatural reproduction is still a question mark, though.
You’ll get lots of modern connectivity conveniences in the AZ100, too, such as three-device Bluetooth multipoint that trounces the two-device limit of most competitors. The device also supports Google Fast Pair for seamless switching between supported Android devices, Bluetooth LE Audio with Auracast for easy multidevice audio pairing and sharing, and the low-latency LC3 audio codec.
Photo: Panasonic
The EAH-AZ100 certainly aren’t starved for style.
The earbuds come in a wireless charging case that adds 28 hours of battery to the advertised 10-hour runtime during AAC playback or up to seven hours with LDAC, which Technics says you can achieve while noise cancellation is on. They also have the same IPX4 water resistance as the AZ80 (although, like the older pair, the case still has no such rating).
All of these qualities sound about right for a $300 pair of flagship earbuds in 2025, and in some cases, the AZ100 seem to be pushing the bar a bit. They certainly have the on-paper credentials, and we already thought the AZ80 were justifiable at that price. (They now start at $199.99.) If the AZ100 are building on that foundation with a meaningfully transformed soundstage, then the incumbent rivals occupying this tier of wireless earbuds should be listening.
The Evie Ring first debuted at last year’s CES. Since then, it’s launched a second ring and is now introducing an AI chatbot. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
AI is the big buzzword in health tech at CES 2025. Everywhere you look, there are AI algorithms, AI health recommendations, and AI chatbots. The thing is, AI’s got a reputation for making things up — and when it comes to health, the stakes for accuracy and privacy are high.
That’s why smart ring maker Movano wants to make one thing abundantly clear about its new chatbot, EvieAI: this one has been post-trained exclusively on peer-reviewed medical journals.
EvieAI was designed to be a more accurate alternative to something like ChatGPT. The difference is, unlike ChatGPT and other similar generative AI assistants, EvieAI theoretically won’t be pulling from vast repositories of public data where health and wellness misinformation runs rife. According to Movano CEO John Mastrototaro, it’s been trained on and will be constrained to over 100,000 medical journals written by medical professionals.
All the data the LLM has access to comes from accredited sources that have been referred to by a medical advisory board, Mastrototaro says. That includes FDA-approved journals, practices, and procedures. EvieAI is a bounded LLM, which means it will only speak to data from the “post-training” phase after it’s been initially created. In this case, that means medical data. The data is then cross-referenced with organizations like the Mayo Clinic, Harvard, and UCLA. The LLM does this by referencing this outside data before answering and making sure there isn’t a conflict.
The result, according to Movano, is 99 percent accuracy, though we weren’t able to test EvieAI for ourselves before CES. The company says this is possible because anytime you query EvieAI, the LLM is tracking to see if the information given in the conversation is consistent and accurate compared to the data it’s been trained on.
Achieving that level of accuracy is a tall order and a bold claim. Most chatbots don’t make reliably accurate statements, and some specifically steer clear of health and medicine precisely because the stakes are so high. When I ask about AI’s tendency to hallucinate, however, I’m firmly told that Movano isn’t afraid for EvieAI to tell users it doesn’t have an answer.
“If you ask it ‘What do you think about the election?’, it’s not going to respond,” says Mastrototaro. “It’s not going to tell you because it doesn’t have any information about that.”
“I think that it’s okay to say no if you don’t know the answer to something,” he adds. “And I think sometimes, with the other tools out there, they’re gonna answer one way or another, whether it’s right or wrong. We’re just only gonna give an answer if it’s right.”
EvieAI is meant to be a conversational resource that gives clear and concise answers to health and wellness questions, with an emphasis on women’s health (much like the company’s Evie Ring).
Even so, health, wellness, and medicine are an ever-shifting landscape. Even peer-reviewed studies can present contradictory findings. Doctors don’t always agree on emerging science. By and large, health tech has also steered clear of anything that could be considered diagnostic or medical advice — something that would require FDA oversight.
Image: Movano
Here’s what a conversation with EvieAI is meant to look like.
To that end, Mastrototaro says the LLM is updated monthly with new approved documents such as medical journals and articles detailing breakthroughs. He also emphasizes that EvieAI is steering clear of anything diagnostic. The AI will not get into treatment but act more as a guide that asks clarifying questions to steer you in the right direction. For example, if you suspect that you might have diabetes, it may ask clarifying questions about whether you have experienced low vision or weight gain as well as inquire about your diet. But if you tell it you’ve chopped your finger off, or express that you’re experiencing suicidal ideation, it’ll direct you to the ER or to the number to call an appropriate hotline. The hope is that EvieAI can help people better research and prepare for a doctor’s visit in a way that’s more natural and supportive than, say, falling down a WebMD rabbit hole.
As for privacy, Movano says EvieAI will follow industry-standard encryption standards in storage and transmission and that any chats can’t be traced back to individuals. Mastrototaro also says conversation data will be periodically deleted and won’t be used for targeted ads, either.
It can be easy to roll one’s eyes at promises of privacy and accuracy in health tech. Movano has thus far shown a dogged dedication to adhering to medical industry best practices and standards. It recently gained FDA clearance for its EvieMED ring, an enterprise version of its ring aimed at remote patient monitoring and clinical trials. Movano also recently relaunched the consumer version of its Evie Ring to better address initial feedback from customers, like improved sleep and heart rate accuracy.
In the future, Movano hopes to eventually further incorporate individual health data collected by its smart rings. But for now, a beta version will roll out starting on January 8th to existing Evie Ring users within the Evie app at no extra cost.
Asus is the latest to set its sights on Apple’s bread-and-butter laptop. | Image: Asus
Asus’ new featherweight laptop is aiming to be the latest Windows rival to the Apple MacBook Air. The Asus Zenbook A14 is a new thin and light productivity machine announced at CES 2025 sporting a Qualcomm Snapdragon X processor for a claimed battery life of up to 32 hours and a weight of just 2.18 pounds — just over half a pound lighter than the current M3 MacBook Air. The A14’s ultralight magnesium alloy chassis is decked out in Asus’ “Ceraluminum” ceramic coating to keep its weight down and give the laptop a matte, stone-like finish.
Asus is undercutting Apple’s M3 Air in price as well as weight. The Zenbook A14 with a new base-model eight-core Snapdragon X will start at $1,099.99 in gray when it launches in mid-January with 32GB of RAM, 1TB SSD, and a 14-inch OLED display capable of 1920 x 1200 resolution running at 60Hz with 600 nits of peak brightness. Later in March, Asus will launch an even cheaper $899.99 model in beige that’s a little heavier at 2.4 pounds, with a slightly higher-end eight-core Snapdragon X Plus chip but only 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage — exclusively sold at Best Buy.
The A14 has a 70Wh battery, compared to the smaller 52.6Wh cell in the MacBook Air. And it offers a decent selection of ports, with two USB 4 Type-C for charging / data, one USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, a 3.5mm combo headphone / mic jack, and a full-size HDMI 2.1 port. The A14 can connect to up to three external monitors with its lid open, compared to the M3 MacBook Air’s two monitors while its lid is closed (though, keep in mind, one of those monitors will have to provide power to the Zenbook over USB-C).
It all sounds pretty compelling on paper, but while Windows on Arm proved its competence in 2024 through Snapdragon X’s balance of performance and battery life, there can still be compatibility headaches in some unsupported apps and games. And frankly, while our benchmarks of Snapdragon X Plus and X Elite processors were competitive in some ways with Apple’s M3 MacBook Air, I’m skeptical a new lower-end version can really hang against it — let alone an anticipated M4 model.
I had a very brief moment to get my hands on the Zenbook A14 at an early preview event in December, and I can attest to how surprisingly light Asus’ new laptop is. You can pick it up from a corner with just two or three fingers with ease, but it doesn’t feel flimsy or cheap. The matte finish and sad beige aesthetic may not be to everyone’s liking, and I wager most people might think a MacBook Air’s exposed aluminum feels fancier, but Asus put some of its build quality where it counts. For example, the A14’s hinge can be opened with just one finger, while far too many Windows laptops out there require both hands to pry open their lids.
Yes, I’ll have three fingers of laptop, with a little bit of pepper and some cheese.
There have been plenty of claimed “MacBook killers” and past Windows laptops aiming for Apple’s crown as the go-to pick for the average user, but few stack up as the complete packages like those offered by Apple. Maybe pairing a Snapdragon X’s excellent battery life with some nice extras like OLED screens and solid build at affordable-ish prices might bring something special to the table — though we’ll have to see about performance.
Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge
Some Motorola automated license plate reader surveillance cameras are live-streaming video and car data to the unsecured internet where anyone can watch and scrape them, a security researcher has found. In a proof-of-concept, a privacy advocate then developed a tool that automatically scans the exposed footage for license plates, and dumps that information into a spreadsheet, allowing someone to track the movements of others in real time.
Matt Brown of Brown Fine Security made a series of YouTube videos showing vulnerabilities in a Motorola Reaper HD ALPR that he bought on eBay. As we have reported previously, these ALPRs are deployed all over the United States by cities and police departments. Brown initially found that it is possible to view the video and data that these cameras are collecting if you join the private networks that they are operating on. But then he found that many of them are misconfigured to stream to the open internet rather than a private network.
“My initial videos were showing that if you’re on the same network, you can access the video stream without authentication,” Brown told 404 Media in a video chat. “But then I asked the question: What if somebody misconfigured this and instead of it being on a private network, some of these found their way onto the public internet?”
In his most recent video, Brown shows that many of these cameras are indeed misconfigured to stream both video as well as the data they are collecting to the open internet and whose IP addresses can be found using the Internet of Things search engine Censys. The streams can be watched without any sort of login.
In many cases, they are streaming color video as well as infrared black-and-white video of the streets they are surveilling, and are broadcasting that data, including license plate information, onto the internet in real time.
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Will Freeman, the creator of DeFlock, an open-source map of ALPRs in the United States, said that people in the DeFlock community have found many ALPRs that are streaming to the open internet. Freeman built a proof of concept script that takes data from unencrypted Motorola ALPR streams, decodes that data, and adds timestamped information about specific car movements into a spreadsheet. A spreadsheet he sent me shows a car’s make, model, color, and license plate number associated with the specific time that they drove past an unencrypted ALPR near Chicago. So far, roughly 170 unencrypted ALPR streams have been found.
“Let’s say 10 of them are in a city at strategic locations. If you connect to all 10 of them, you’d be able to track regular movements of people,” Freeman said.
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Freeman told 404 Media that this fact is more evidence that the proliferation of ALPRs around the United States and the world represents a significant privacy risk, and Freeman has been a strong advocate against the widespread adoption of ALPRs.
“I’ve always thought these things were concerning, but this just goes to show that law enforcement agencies and the companies that provide ALPRs are no different than any other data company and can’t be trusted with this information,” Freeman told 404 Media. “So when a police department says there’s nothing to worry about unless you’re a criminal, there definitely is. Here’s evidence of a ton of cameras operated by law enforcement freely streaming sensitive data they’re collecting on us. My hometown is mostly Motorola [ALPRs], so someone could simply write a script that maps vehicles to times and precise locations.”
A Motorola Solutions spokesperson told 404 Media that the company is working on a firmware update that “will introduce additional security hardening.”
“Motorola Solutions designs, develops and deploys our products to prioritize data security and protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data,” the spokesperson said. “The ReaperHD camera is a legacy device, sales of which were discontinued in June 2022. Findings in the recent YouTube videos do not pose a risk to customers using their devices in accordance with our recommended configurations. Some customer-modified network configurations potentially exposed certain IP addresses. We are working directly with these customers to restore their system configurations consistent with our recommendations and industry best practices. Our next firmware update will introduce additional security hardening.”
Brown said that, although not all Motorola ALPRs are streaming to the internet, the security problems he found are deeply concerning and it’s not likely that ALPR security is something that’s going to suddenly be fixed.
“Let’s say the police or Motorola were like ‘Oh crap, we shouldn’t have put those on the public internet.’ They can clean that up,” he said. “But you still have a super vulnerable device that if you gain access to their network you can see the data. When you deploy the technology into the field, attacks always get easier, they don’t get harder.”
CES is not a tech show--it's a time machine. Each booth, keynote, and prototype offers a glimpse of the future. It's a cacophony of innovation, yet hidden within the noise are the signals that define tomorrow's consumer behavior, business models, and cultural shifts. For ad executives, the challenge isn't merely surviving CES; it's about seizing...
Today (Jan. 7), Stagwell Brand Performance Network announced it is partnering with independent audio media agency Ad Results Media (ARM). ARM has executed audio media strategy, creative, planning, and buying for brands like Molson Coors, BetterHelp, ZipRecruiter, and Liquid Death. The strategic collaboration will allow Stagwell's clients to expand its marketing across the audio creator...
The OnePlus 13 is here and while it doesn’t make any dumb excuses about lacking wireless charging, it does still snub Qi2. However, the OnePlus 13 does still debut “Mag,” a collection of first-party cases that add the magnetic aspect of Qi2 to the device after the fact.
I knew I had found my favorite computer of CES 2025 early last December, long before I had a chance to see what most other PC makers were cooking up. That was the Zenbook A14, a system that ASUS had joked about calling the Zenbook Air. That name would have been fitting: It weighs less than 2.2 pounds (or 1kg), half a pound lighter than Apple's smallest MacBook Air. In almost every respect, the ZenBook A14 outclasses Apple's ultraportable, with specs like a 14-inch OLED screen and up to 32 hours of battery life. The only downside is that it's running Qualcomm's Snapdragon X and X Elite chips, which limits compatibility with older Windows apps (along with some devices).
What's most remarkable about the Zenbook A14, though, is that it simply feels great to hold. The light weight is a big part of that, but its also covered in ASUS's unique Ceraluminum material, which feels markedly different than a typical metal case. ASUS has deployed Ceraluminum across its premium lineup for years, but this is one of the first times we've seen it on practically every surface of a laptop (the top lid, keyboard desk and bottom).
The Zenbook A14 also features plenty of thoughtful design elements. It's easy to open up one-handed, thanks to a refined hinge that counter-acts the laptop's tiny frame. It also has a surprising amount of ports, including one USB Type A connection, two USB C ports, HDMI 2.1 and a headphone jack. That's all connectivity we'll never see on a MacBook Air.
In my short time with the Zenbook A14, its keyboard and trackpad also felt relatively comfortable. ASUS says the keys offer 1.3mm of travel, and while they could always be deeper, they seemed fine for casual typing. The laptop also sports a 1080p IR camera, speakers with Dolby Atmos support and Wi-Fi 7. Basically, it has everything we'd want in a premium laptop in 2025.
ASUS
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/the-asus-zenbook-a14-is-the-macbook-air-competitor-ive-been-dreaming-of-173026012.html?src=rss
ASUS is leaning even harder into Copilot+PCs with it's new Vivobook 14 and 16 at CES 2025. And unlike the laptops the company introduced last fall, this time ASUS is going all in on Qualcomm chips.
Just like the new ultralight Zenbook A14, both the Vivobook 14 and Vivobook 16 come with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X chip, and in the case of both sizes of Vivobook, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. ASUS claims these new internals mean both laptops are 44 percent more performant than last generation Vivobooks and should last longer too, with a battery life of up to 19.8 hours.
Regardless of whether you buy the 14-inch or 16-inch laptop, you'll get a 60Hz, 1,920 x 1,200 resolution display. Like past ASUS laptops, both Vivobooks will also use the company's "AI Camera" which can detect when you're not sitting in front of your screen and automatically dim the display to stretch battery life further, or lock your computer for added security. You'll have plenty of options if you need to plug something in, including two USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, an HDMI port and an audio jack.
ASUS imagines the draw of all this new hardware will be the AI features they enable, like Generative Fill and Erase for editing photos or Live Captions for automatically adding subtitles to the audio on your computer. A more powerful laptop that lasts longer is more immediately appealing, though.
Alongside the new Vivobooks, ASUS is announcing two new enterprise-focused laptops, the ExpertBook B5 and B3. Both laptops come with up to an Intel Core Ultra Series 2, up to 64GB of RAM and plenty of security features to keep your data safe.
ASUS hasn't shared the availability or price of the new ExpertBooks. The ASUS Vivobook 14 and Vivobook 16 are available to pre-order now for $700 and $750, respectively.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/asus-brings-qualcomms-latest-chip-to-the-vivobook-14-and-16-173007085.html?src=rss
Panasonic has debuted several sets of earbuds under its Technics brand at this point. At CES 2025, the company is adding one more, but this one has some more interesting tech inside than the others. The new Technics flagship earbuds, the EAH-AZ100, have newly-developed magnetic fluid drivers that the company says allowed it to significantly improve audio quality. The previous model, the EAH-AZ80, already sounded great, so Technics really had it work cut out for it in order to improve things even further. But after hearing them for myself, I can confirm the company managed to make yet another sonic leap.
Technics says the 10mm magnetic fluid drivers inside the AZ100 produce "clean, high-resolution, low-vibration and low-distortion sounds," which it further describes as "the most authentic, balanced audio that’s true to the original source." The drivers utilize technology that has be miniaturized from the company's EAH-TZ700 wired in-ear monitors. That magnetic fluid is an oil-like liquid that's filled with magnetic particles before Technics injects it between the driver magnet and coil. The driver also has a free edge that enables 3Hz of deep bass, plus there's an aluminum diaphragm that produces natural sound separation and details at high resolution.
Spatial audio is in play as well. The AZ100 supports Dolby Atmos and Dolby Head Tracking for a full 360-degree listening setup. You can also listen to LDAC content on these earbuds, but battery life takes a hit when you do. Robust adaptive active noise cancellation (ANC), Voice Focus AI for calls, touch controls and three-device multipoint connectivity are all on the spec sheet. There's a one-touch Conversation Mode too, allowing users to instantly pause content and activate transparency mode when needed. Auracast and Google Fast Pair made the cut as well.
You can expect up to 10 hours of ANC use on a charge, with another 18 hours worth of power in the case. That accessory supports wireless charging with Qi-certified devices and a 15-minute quick charge is enough for 90 minutes of playback with noise cancellation enabled. The AZ100's updates also include a refined shape as well as size and weight reductions, all of which should lead to a more comfortable fit for the IPX4-rated earbuds.
Panasonic's preview event was in a dark Vegas nightclub, so apologies for the image quality.
Billy Steele for Engadget
I was able to try the AZ100 for a few minutes at Panasonic's preview event at CES. When doing a direct comparison with a set of AZ80 earbuds that were also available, the difference in sound quality was striking. The AZ80 was well-reviewed, and some outlets even picked them as the best option in terms of pure audio performance. The AZ100 blows them out of the water.
The first thing I noticed was how much louder the AZ100 is at the same volume level. What's more, all of the claims Technics made about the detail, clarity and deep bass from the new fluid drivers holds true. Across songs from Lewis Capaldi, Dua Lipa, Train and The Eagles (I didn't pick the playlist), there was a wide, immersive sound stage that enveloped my ears with guitars, drums, beats and vocals. There was driving low-end tone when a dance track like "Don't Start Now" called for it, and there was also pristine detail in softer acoustic guitar in "Hotel California." I'll note that Technics offered FLAC files for the demo, so I'll be interested to see how the AZ100 fares with "regular" quality tunes from a streaming service.
ANC performance was also quite good during my short introduction. The noise-blocking tech was robust enough to silence most of the clamor from the showroom in a Vegas nightclub, though it struggled with the voices of the people closest to me. Transparency mode sounded pleasantly natural as well, but I'd like to test it in a less-crowded environment before I can say for sure how good it really is.
The AZ100 is available today for $300 is silver and black color options.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/technics-az100-earbuds-hands-on-ces-2025-173004465.html?src=rss
iDrive uses 3D graphics and augmented reality to keep your eyes on the road.
At CES this week, BMW announced a new iDrive operating system with an eye-catching centerpiece: a 3D heads-up display (HUD) that stretches from pillar to pillar along the windshield.
Included in this futuristic setup is a new steering wheel with haptic buttons and a new augmented reality system that layers navigation directions and driver assistance with road information. And perhaps the most noticeable change: BMW eliminated the traditional gauge cluster in the dash in favor of a customizable digital version projected onto the windshield.
“We’ve taken on a new perspective in designing the UX,” Christian Bauer, the head of digital and UX at BMW, told a group of journalists at a preview event held near BMW’s massive Spartanburg, South Carolina, plant in November last year. “Pushing the display closer to the street will help drivers make quicker decisions, which will make it easier to keep your eyes on the road.”
The new system will appear in the upcoming-but-yet-unnamed X-class SUV that BMW is building on the all-electric Neue Klasse platform. That SUV will make its debut at the end of 2025, according to BMW.
BMW, like many automakers, is following in Tesla’s minimalistic footsteps by cutting down on screens and dials inside the vehicle. While BMW isn’t the first to eliminate the dash cluster and instead project it onto the windshield, it is an interesting move for a company with the tagline “Ultimate Driving Machine,” and its drivers have historically preferred classic dials and gauges in the dash.
BMW isn’t really worried about any backlash, chief technology officer Frank Weber told me — even though there were some members of the company’s board who were a bit concerned when first presented with the idea.
Weber said the new set up is no longer like having a video screen in your car, but rather an added layer of augmented reality that keeps driver and car more connected to the road. “You are connected to the car, and the car is connected to the road. It’s exactly where you would expect the information to be,” he added.
Your dashboard on the windshield
This isn’t the first time that BMW has teased the new heads-up display called BMW Panoramic iDrive. The company showed off a version of it at CES 2023 in the iVision Dee concept, and it’s all part of the new platform called BMW Operating System X.
The new heads-up display runs along the narrow black strip at the bottom of the windshield that stretches between A-pillars. The display is three-dimensional and includes speed, adaptive driving assistance information, stoplight and road sign information, navigation information, and state of charge. It’s customizable, too, allowing drivers to set up the information they want to have in their eyeline while on the road.
Unlike other HUDs, where you have to be at the right angle to see the information displayed, BMW says the new display will be visible to both the driver and passenger.
BMW also integrated navigation and ADAS features in the HUD so that the path you’re following turns green when using onboard navigation with driver assist. “If you think about higher levels of automated driving,” Bauer said, “then ADAS and navigation naturally come together.” He also noted that many of the features of the new HUD came about thanks to customer feedback. BMW already offers some hands-off autonomous driving features on marked highways.
Though the windshield is the display surface, it is not a specialty windshield and won’t cost extra to replace if it gets a rock chip, BMW said. A special film on the windshield helps make the 3D images appear crisp and clear. And the black print that the HUD is projected onto is the standard black print on all other vehicles.
Customizable infotainment screen
In addition to creating a full-windshield HUD, BMW also introduced a new rhombus-shaped center infotainment screen that offers a more customizable interface. Users can drag and drop “pixels,” or apps that they use frequently, into a couple of main boxes on the home screen so they are more readily available. According to BMW, the company does have plans to offer a BMW app store for the new UX, which could include paid apps for things like special lighting packages, similar to Hyundai’s plans for the upcoming Ioniq 9.
BMW says it’s using edge AI to “learn” from the customer as they drive and offer relevant features based on behavior. For example, if you frequently take a winding road home from work, put the vehicle into Sport mode, and cue up your music app, those options will regularly pop into the center screen for easy access. And if you frequently listen to meditation apps or podcasts while charging your EV, those apps will pop into the center stack whenever you’re plugged in.
BMW says it’s also using large language models to help make the vehicle smarter about what drivers want. BMW’s natural voice recognition system has been a class leader for some time, but now the company is leveraging LLMs to make navigation a bit easier. For example, you can ask the system to take you to a charging station close to a grocery store, using natural language, rather than having to use specific keywords.
In addition to updating its OS, BMW has also reimagined the steering wheel in the upcoming Neue Klasse. The new version has quite a few more buttons covered in a single piece of plastic, much like a medical device. Each button lights up when the system is available and offers haptic feedback when pushed.
BMW let us experience an approximation of the HUD and use some of the haptic buttons on a VR rig in November, ahead of the CES announcement. While it was impossible to get an impression of the imagery’s real-world clarity on the windshield, the haptic buttons were easy enough to navigate without being able to see them. The buttons feel similar to those in the 2024 Mercedes Benz S-Class and are all within easy reach.
BMW says that the new iDrive, UX, and interior setup will start to appear in its vehicles at the end of 2025.
The mask costs $150, and features multiple colors for addressing different skincare concerns. | Image: Nanoleaf
Nanoleaf is best known for its colorful smart home lighting. But at CES 2025, it’s expanding into new territory: beauty tech. Specifically, a $149.99 LED face mask.
The Nanoleaf LED Light Therapy Face Mask is made of medical-grade materials and has received FDA Class II device certification. (This doesn’t mean the FDA has given Nanoleaf’s mask a stamp of approval; it just means this is a moderate-risk device that meets FDA safety standards.) It has seven different modes for specific concerns, based on color. Those include white, red, blue, purple, yellow, cyan, and green.
Image: Nanoleaf
The mask is an FDA Class II device.
This isn’t anything we haven’t seen before. These types of at-home masks are massively popular among skincare enthusiasts to address a range of issues like acne, fine lines, and uneven skin tone, as well as boost collagen production. LED light therapy is also a treatment offered by dermatologists and estheticians.
That said, you should keep in mind there’s a definite difference between the light therapy you get at the dermatologist and at-home gadgets like this. The ones used by medical professionals are usually stronger. Plus, while red, blue, and near-infrared light therapy has been cleared by the FDA, other colors haven’t. In this case, the Nanoleaf mask’s Class II certification is more of a sign that the company has put in the effort to ensure a degree of safety.
In any case, when you think about it, it makes sense that Nanoleaf might be interested in this market. After all, what’s an LED Light therapy mask but a smart bulb by another name?
PocketBook, E Ink, and Sharp collaborated to create the low-power InkPoster digital display. | Image: PocketBook
E Ink has collaborated with PocketBook and Sharp to create a new low-power digital poster that displays images and artwork on a vivid color electronic paper screen. The InkPoster pairs E Ink’s Spectra 6 screen technology with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, allowing artwork to be regularly changed and uploaded. And thanks to a large battery, it only needs to be charged about once a year.
The InkPoster will be available in three sizes. The smallest model has a 13.3-inch screen with a resolution of 1200 x 1600 and a 14,000mAh battery, while the largest option measures 31.5 inches with a 2560 x 1440 resolution, giving it a slightly lower PPI in exchange for a bigger 20,000mAh battery. There’s also an in-between 28.5-inch, 2160 x 3060 version with a 20,000mAh battery that incorporates Sharp’s IGZO technology for faster screen refreshes. Pricing is expected to be around $599 for the 13.3-inch InkPoster, $1,700 for the 31.5-inch, and $2,400 for the 28.5-inch.
Image: PocketBook
E Ink’s Spectra 6 e-paper uses six different ink colors to produce vivid images.
The InkPoster will have access to “thousands of curated artworks” from “iconic masterpieces to contemporary works” when connected to an accompanying app, according to PocketBook. But the company hasn’t shared specific details about where art is being sourced or what themes or artists will be available.
You’re also able to turn the InkPoster into a digital photo frame by uploading your own images. Unlike similar products from Canvia, the now-defunct Electric Objects, or even Samsung’s The Frame TV, the InkPoster doesn’t have any screen lighting that could potentially keep you up at night if hung in a bedroom and only uses power when the displayed image is being changed.
The InkPoster is one of the first consumer products to use E Ink’s Spectra 6 display technology. E-readers like the Amazon Kindle Colorsoft and the Kobo Libra Colour use E Ink’s Kaleido 3 technology, which offers fast screen refreshes but a limited palette of 4,096 colors. The Remarkable Paper Pro tablet uses a slower E Ink Gallery 3 screen, which can display over 50,000 colors using red, blue, yellow, and white ink particles.
E Ink hasn’t revealed exactly how many different colors Spectra 6 can reproduce, but it relies on a six-color ink system adding green and black that pushes the gamut volume closer to 60,000. Because it can take several seconds to refresh the entire screen, Spectra 6 is better suited to devices like static digital displays like the InkPoster, instead of e-readers.
