The vehicles will be underpinned by a new in-house-developed operating system named after Honda’s iconic Asimo robot.

At CES in Las Vegas today, Honda showed off its promised new battery-electric Honda Zero prototypes. The first is an SUV based on its Space-Hub concept, called the Honda 0 SUV. The second is a sedan based on its Saloon concept, called the Honda 0 Saloon.

Honda says the two new EVs will go into production sometime in 2026. And as if that weren’t enough, the new vehicles will be the first to feature the automaker’s new in-house-developed Asimo operating system.

Zero looks

Concepts and prototypes are hard to judge because they are typically more design-focused than what consumers will eventually see at their local dealers.

That being said, the Honda 0 SUV looks a bit like an ’80s-era dustbuster got together with a Volvo EX30, while the Honda 0 Saloon looks somewhat akin to an anteater. But in person, both look much better than I expected.

The SUV, in particular, appears much closer to a final production version and offers a unique rear cargo opening that includes two fold-down tables on either side. The Honda 0 Saloon is much swoopier, while still appearing similar to the Saloon concept that Honda showed off in 2024. Still, Honda toned it down, replacing the gull wing-style doors on the concept with more normal ones. A set of retro-style headlights blink open and look similar to Lamborghini Countach designs of the ’80s.

There’s something noticeably nostalgic about the design. When the doors of the Saloon are open, the yoke-style steering wheel rotates so that the driver can slide into the low-slung seat without getting snagged. And when the doors are closed, the yoke rotates back down. That’s possible because the Zero platform is drive-by-wire. (In the SUV, the yoke remains stationary.)

Both interiors still look highly prototyped, with a dash-sized screen stretching from pillar to pillar. It’s reminiscent of the forthcoming Afeela EV from Honda’s joint venture with Sony. (The Afeela also got a proper rollout this week.)

The exterior designs also have an element of the luxury automaker Lagonda, a brand owned by Aston Martin that has dipped in and out of existence over the years. One of the more polarizing designs that Aston brought to the market, the Aston Martin Lagonda Shooting Brake, looks very similar to the designs that Honda showed off at the show.

The Honda 0 SUV will be the first to go into production for the North American market in 2026 that Honda said it will build at its factory in Ohio. And it will likely drive similarly to the Honda Zero prototype CR-V that I drove in Japan in October.

The new operating system

Honda says Honda Zero embodies three principles: “thin, light, and wise.” At CES, Honda executives said they were focused on showing off the “wise” principle.

That includes a new, in-house-developed operating system called Asimo OS, named after the company’s Asimo humanoid robot from the early 2000s that was designed for “people’s daily lives.”

Honda retired Asimo in 2018 to focus on “more practical” applications. But the company retained a lot of information from the more than 33.26 million steps the robot took over its lifetime about some of the stumbling blocks and safety issues a fully autonomous robot would have to overcome. When Honda unveiled Asimo in 2000, it was widely heralded as both a beloved friend (which once played soccer with President Barack Obama and could autonomously recognize a human wave as well as moving objects) and a symbol of Japanese technological advancement.

As an icon of robotics, Honda decided to name its new operating system after Asimo. The new OS will allow for things like “ultra-personal optimization” of the digital experience as well as automated driving. Honda also said it plans to integrate the management of its electronic control units (ECUs) for the vehicle for better control of functions like suspension, braking, and handling.

Honda’s Zero vehicles will be equipped with Level 3 automated driving, which allows the driver to take their hands, feet, and attention off the road ahead, depending on the conditions. Currently, Honda only offers this feature on its Honda Legend sedan equipped with the company’s Sensing Elite tech, which is only available to lease in Japan.

Honda says that it will leverage its relationship with Helm.AI (a company that Honda invested more than $30 million in in 2022) as well as its own AI development to learn from “smaller amounts of data” so that its automated driving system can rapidly expand the range of conditions in which it can be used.

Honda said it wants to offer Level 3 autonomy in heavy traffic situations and expand the offerings from there via over-the-air updates. All Zero vehicles will have the option for this technology at an “affordable” price.

Honda did not give further details about pricing but did say that the system will allow occupants to watch videos or remotely join a meeting in the car when the Level 3 system is engaged.

All Honda Zero vehicles will come with this new OS and be updatable over the air. The system will also “learn” from and adapt to each “user.” Because, in the era of software-defined vehicles, there are no longer drivers and passengers, but users to “enhance the joy of driving.”

A new partner for Honda’s system-on-a-chip

Honda also announced a new partnership with Japanese semiconductor manufacturer Renesas to create a system-on-a-chip to cut down on the number of ECUs and handle more processing demand.

Most vehicles today have multiple ECUs handling different systems. Each one has to communicate to the other in milliseconds, which requires a lot of compute power. The more ECUs in a vehicle, the more wiring, the more code, and the more lag, so Honda is partnering with Renesas to create a single ECU for future Zero vehicles.

Honda says that its ECU will handle everything from ADAS to powertrain and comfort features as well as AI — and that this will require a chip that can handle all of that processing demand at once.

Honda’s move to bring this development more in-house is part of a wider trend of automakers moving away from off-the-shelf, plug-and-play-style options for their software needs. Instead, they’re developing bespoke ECUs, chips, and other components to handle the increasing demands of the software-defined vehicle, especially in light of AI adoption and autonomous driving systems.

As part of Meta’s sweeping changes to content moderation announced today, CEO Mark Zuckerberg says that the company will also be moving its content moderation teams from California to Texas to “help remove the concern that biased employees are overly censoring content,” he wrote on Threads.

“We’re going to move our trust and safety and content moderation teams out of California, and our US-based content review is going to be based in Texas,” Zuckerberg says in a video about the changes. “As we work to promote free expression, I think that it will help us build trust to do this work in places where there’s less concern about the bias of our teams.”

Meta’s decision to move its content moderation teams to Texas follows Elon Musk bringing X and SpaceX to the state, though Musk’s move was driven in part by his opposition to a California law that’s intended to support LGBTQ+ students. (Employees who work for Meta in Texas will be subject to bans on gender-affirming care for transgender minors along with one of the country’s most stringent abortion bans.)

Meta’s other moderation changes include ditching its independent fact-checking program in the US in favor of an X-inspired Community Notes feature, removing restrictions on topics like immigration and gender, and bringing back civic content to Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

The company’s blog post about the updates was written by Joel Kaplan, Meta’s new Trump-friendly policy chief.

The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating Tesla’s “Actual Smart Summon” remote parking feature after several crash incidents were reported.

NHTSA says it has received reports of 16 incidents involving Tesla’s smart summon feature in 2016-2025 Model S and X vehicles as well as 2017-2025 Model 3s and 2020-2025 Model Ys. The administration’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) is probing an estimated 2.6 million vehicles with the parking feature.

Tesla re-launched its remote parking Smart Summon as Actually Smart Summon (or ASS, get it?) last fall, after upgrading it to account for the company’s decision to remove radar and ultrasonic sensors in favor of a camera-only approach. Tesla owners control the vehicle by pushing a button in the Tesla smartphone app. The vehicle then uses cameras to navigate across a parking lot without anyone behind the wheel. Releasing the button on the app stops the vehicle’s movements.

But since the feature was reintroduced under the new moniker, a number of videos of alleged crash incidents have been uploaded on YouTube and other social media platforms. Tesla vehicles are seen scraping up against other vehicles, colliding with parking signs, or running into walls. In fairness, there are also a number of videos showing the remote summon feature working flawlessly, even in crowded parking lots.

But NHTSA is concerned with the incidents that didn’t turn out well. There have not been any injuries reported, but the agency is looking into “multiple crash allegations, involving both Smart Summon and Actually Smart Summon, where the user had too little reaction time to avoid a crash, either with the available line of sight or releasing the phone app button, which stops the vehicle’s movement.”

No ASS-related crashes have been reported through NHTSA’s standing general order that requires companies to report incidents involving automated or autonomous features.

Of course, the crash-reporting rule, and all of NHTSA’s safety investigations into Tesla, are headed into an uncertain future with Donald Trump set to retake the White House. Trump’s top donor and advisor is Elon Musk, who stands to benefit if the incoming administration decides to ignore or shut down all its various investigations into his companies.

The games published under Private Division, Take-Two Interactive’s former indie label, are under new management. Bloomberg reports that the former employees of Annapurna Interactive have formed a new, as-yet-unnamed company that will take over Private Division’s games portfolio.

Last year, Take-Two sold off the indie label to a then unnamed buyer that Bloomberg reports is Haveli Investments, a private equity firm based in Texas. Also last year, the staff at Annapurna Interactive, the games arm of the Annapurna Pictures media company, resigned en masse sparking questions about the fate of its own portfolio of games. The resignations came after negotiations to spin off Annapurna Interactive into its own independent company apparently broke down. Annapurna’s former employees have come together with Haveli Investments to form a new company and Bloomberg reports that Private Division’s existing employees will face layoffs but the details are currently unclear.

The new company will oversee Private Division’s existing and in-development titles including the Lord of the Rings-meets-Animal Crossing game Tales of the Shire, due out in March, and Pokémon developer Game Freak’s forthcoming game codenamed Project Bloom.

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 senior 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

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

A built-in scale will keep track of their weight using the LG ThinQ app, and 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 at LG’s booth at CES this year, there is no pricing or release date.

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.

Read our Apple AirTag review.

Three more deals worth a look

• 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

“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.”

It may be about half the size, but the Pro Tech Go isn’t quite half the price: $49.95 compared to the original kit’s $74.95. It’s available now from iFixit’s online store, Amazon, and Best Buy.

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.”

The launch is a long time coming after initially being announced in 2023. FCC commissioners unanimously voted to approve the labeling program in March, opening a public comment period. Recently, the FCC conditionally approved 11 companies to be Cybersecurity Label Administrators, which will help review applications for the label. Neuberger and FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel are slated to discuss the program at the Consumer Electronics Show on Thursday.

“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

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 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.

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

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’ 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.

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

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.

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

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?

The LED Light Therapy Face Mask is available now for preorders.

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

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.

GE unveiled several new smart home products at CES on Monday, including new Matter-compatible Cync smart switches, non-Matter Cync lighting, and upscale smart shades. All of this will be rolling out over the next few months, starting with the new smart switches in March.

GE’s new Cync switches — the Smart Keypad Dimmer ($44.99) and Smart Paddle Dimmer ($25.99) — won’t use the usual quirky Cync design. The keypad dimmer, pictured at the top of this story, is more utilitarian, with programmable buttons for scenes or group control and up-and-down buttons for dimming at the bottom. The paddle dimmer looks, well, like a paddle switch with a dimming slider on the side. Here’s a picture of that one:

Image: GE

As both of the new dimmers have Matter support, you can expect them to work with any major smart home platform.

GE says “the entire family has been enhanced” so that when you install a Cync switch on a three-way circuit, you don’t have to replace the dumb switch on the other end to keep smart control. That means you can turn the circuit off with the dumb switch, but still use voice commands or scheduled automation with Cync smart bulbs that the switch controls.

The company also announced café lights and outdoor strip lights for its “Cync Dynamic Effects” category of lights that offer 16 million colors, tunable white light, music syncing, and addressable LEDs. The company says the café lights will have reinforced eye holes for hanging and come in 24-foot ($39.99) and 48-foot ($69.99) versions starting in March. The strip lights are coming in April and measure 16 feet ($79.99) or 32 feet ($129.99). They’ll lack Matter support and will only work with Google Home or Amazon Alexa.

Finally, GE is releasing smart shades as part of its Proseo line. They require professional installation and are controllable through the Savant app. The company says they’ll feature “modern architectural aesthetics, performance fabrics and unmatched control interface options to complement any luxury space.” They’re designed to hide wires and screws and to cover large areas like full-wall windows and floor-to-ceiling corner windows. These are custom jobs, “and priced as such,” according to Savant.

After several attempts, OnePlus made a great high-end phone.

Read the full story at The Verge.

I have to commend Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his new policy chief Joel Kaplan on their timing. It’s not hugely surprising that, as the pair announced early today, Meta is giving up on professional third-party fact-checking. The operator of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads has been backing off moderation recently, and fact-checking has always been contentious. But it’s probably smart to do it two weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office — and nominates a Federal Communications Commission head who’s threatened the company over it.

Trump’s FCC chairman pick (and current FCC commissioner), Brendan Carr, is a self-identified free speech defender with a creative interpretation of the First Amendment. In mid-November, as part of a flurry of lightly menacing missives to various entities, Carr sent a letter to Meta, Apple, Google, and Microsoft attacking the companies’ fact-checking programs.

The letter was primarily focused on NewsGuard, a conservative bête noire that Meta doesn’t actually work with. But it also demanded information about “the use of any media monitor or fact checking service,” and it left no doubt about Carr’s position on them. “You participated in a...

Read the full story at The Verge.

Lenovo is trying an experiment. In May, it will officially become the very first company outside of Valve to ship a handheld gaming PC with the Steam Deck’s wonderfully pick-up-and-play SteamOS instead of Microsoft Windows. And at $499, it’ll be a true Steam Deck rival, joining it as one of the lower-priced PC handhelds you can buy.

That handheld will be the 1.6-pound Lenovo Legion Go S, a new and improved version of the company’s eight-inch handheld that ditches the Nintendo Switch-like detachable gamepads and kickstand for a lighter and more traditional design, with a sculpted grip that felt supremely comfortable in my hands.

It’ll also be one of the few handhelds on the market to offer a 120Hz variable refresh rate screen — a highly desirable feature that lets low-power handheld gameplay feel smooth, even if it’s not generating lots of frames. That screen will be lower in resolution at 1920 x 1200, too, and feature a hopefully power-sipping new AMD Ryzen Z2 Go chip. (It’s a Lenovo-exclusive chip, by the way.)

In other words, it might address every major complaint I had in my Legion Go review, while additionally adding fun configurable RGB lighting around the joysticks, a slightly larger 55Wh battery, a pair of levers to reduce the throw of the triggers, and a less obtrusive touchpad, too, while retaining the dual USB 4 ports.

But Lenovo isn’t going all in on SteamOS. Not only will it hedge its bets by shipping a Windows version of the Legion Go S as well but it’ll also ship with Windows this month — four months ahead of the SteamOS models. The Windows model is white:

It’s not like the SteamOS model is ready now anyhow. Valve codesigners Lawrence Yang and Pierre-Loup Griffais tell me they’ve only been working with Lenovo for a couple of months, and the integration isn’t quite done. The new touchpad, gyroscope, and both RGB lighting and TDP configuration options are among the things on their to-do list.

But the Windows version shipping in January will cost $729.99, with 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. In May, the true experiment will begin when gamers can pick between a $499.99 SteamOS version with 16GB / 512GB, a $599.99 Windows version with 16GB / 1TB, or the Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED at $399 and $549, respectively.

And it does sound like there will be one important reason to pick the Steam Deck over the Legion Go S and vice versa, because AMD’s Z2 Go is a different chip. While the Z2 Go announced yesterday sheds cores and GPU generations to be slightly more akin to the Steam Deck’s semi-custom Aerith and / or Sephiroth parts, we noted that it targets higher power levels, and Legion Go product manager Alex Zhu confirms to me that the Legion Go S is aimed at 20-watt performance, 30-watt, maybe even 40-watt configurable performance, which will likely offer higher performance (and lower battery life) than the 15-watt-and-below Steam Deck’s chip.

Zhu says Lenovo is targeting between two and 2.5 hours of battery life in demanding heavy games — which lines up with the basic math of dividing a 55 watt-hour battery by 20 watts, assuming the rest of the system doesn’t eat up a lot more. Versions with AMD’s existing Z1 Extreme chip will also be available in some markets. All Legion Go S can fit full-length M.2 2280 solid state drives.

BTW, Valve isn’t keeping key Steam Deck features like precompiled shaders to itself, or anything else, for that matter. Yang and Griffais say it will be one SteamOS, and the Legion Go S and any future SteamOS devices will get the same updates as the Deck, minus hardware-specific tweaks.

Valve tells me Lenovo is currently its only partner for a SteamOS device — there are no other third-party SteamOS devices currently in the works. But Griffais hints that Valve is close to publicly releasing a new beta of its SteamOS that just might possibly start working on other handhelds as well. (Valve previously confirmed to us that it was building toward some level of support for the Asus ROG Ally in SteamOS as well.)

And it’s vaguely possible that SteamOS beta could arrive before the SteamOS Legion Go S — Valve says it’s slated to ship sometime after March.

But the real dream is to pull a PC handheld out of a box and have it just work, the way a Nintendo Switch works, not to shoehorn an operating system on it afterward, no matter how good the result. That’s why Lenovo is working with Valve: Zhu agrees that SteamOS has the best out-of-box experience. But, he says, Windows offers a whole ecosystem of gaming and productivity that the company believes its customers still want.

Zhu agrees that SteamOS is an experiment for Lenovo and says it’ll look at the feedback and momentum before making its next move. Speaking of what’s next, Lenovo is also building a larger Legion Go 2 with detachable controllers and an 8.8-inch OLED screen, and it brought prototypes of that unit to CES:

Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

Zhu tells me Lenovo doesn’t have “any specific plans” to put SteamOS on the larger Legion Go, just Windows — but perhaps it depends on what customers buy in May.

Meanwhile, Valve is still looking ahead to a future version of its own Steam Deck, saying that partnering with companies like Lenovo hasn’t reduced the desire to build its own. But AMD’s Z2 isn’t the “leap” that Valve’s been waiting for, Griffais tells The Verge. There won’t be a Z2 Steam Deck.

I can confidently say Lenovo’s ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 stole the show for me at CES. I knew it the second I hit a button on the keyboard and saw the concept-turned-real laptop extend its rollable OLED display upward — motors whirring motors and a dumb smile forming on my face.

Compared to the many new laptops, desktops, gadgets, and handhelds Lenovo is announcing at CES, the ThinkBook may be completely ridiculous in a lot of ways — and it’ll start at a whopping $3,499 when it launches sometime in Q1 2025. But damn it, I love its quirkiness and the fact that you can soon buy something so utterly unique for mundane tasks like working on extra-tall spreadsheets.

The ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 has a flexible OLED display with small motors built into its hinge to unfurl the screen and roll it back down. It starts out looking like a fairly unassuming 14-inch productivity laptop, albeit with a slightly square-ish aspect ratio and a resolution of 2000 x 1600. But hitting a dedicated key or raising your hand to the webcam activates the motors and makes the display climb to a tall 16.7 inches, with an extended resolution of 2000 x 2350. It took roughly 10 seconds for the ThinkBook’s screen to extend or contract, and while its motors aren’t egregiously loud, they’re noisy enough to draw attention in a quiet environment. That, and the fact that your laptop just freakin’ grew out of nowhere.

The extra screen real estate in 16.7-inch mode is enough to fit two 16 x 9 windows stacked on top of each other. Going back to 14-inch mode tucks the bottom portion of the screen into the laptop chassis, where it hides below the keyboard deck and displays black pixels to not waste power. Reps from Lenovo, including Samuel Shang of Lenovo research, who worked on the ThinkBook’s development team, said the nested location of the screen and small size of the motors in the hinge allowed for ample battery capacity — which seems to track since the laptop’s 66Wh battery is pretty typical for a laptop of this size. Shang and Lenovo product marketing’s Drupad Kandhi said the ThinkBook was thoroughly tested and rated for at least 30,000 closings and openings of its lid hinge and 20,000 rolls both up and down.

Watching the screen go up and down just didn’t get old in our short time testing it. By default, the ThinkBook plays a bright and colorful abstract animation of a flexible material coiling or unrolling while the screen rolls down or up. It’s a cute graphic that’s reminiscent of rolling homemade dough through a pasta machine, but you can thankfully turn it off and watch the display grow or shrink with your current window or app onscreen. I suspect part of the animation’s purpose is to distract from the little curls visible in the display, which are more obvious when it’s moving and there’s something darker onscreen like The Verge’s homepage.

The flexible OLED in the ThinkBook Plus is one of Samsung Display’s IT foldable panels. Like the creases in folding phones, the ThinkBook’s screen has plenty of smaller creases along its lower half that you don’t really notice when using it — but look closely or stare at the screen from steeper angles, and they’re clear as day. You can see them in some of my photos, but I must concede that my bounced flash really illuminates the creases and makes them look more pronounced than they are with the naked eye.

I went into this demo expecting anxious company reps wanting me to treat their precious creation like a fragile heirloom and feared that just looking at this thing the wrong way would break it. But much to the contrary, they seemed surprisingly confident in letting me tinker with it. I jammed the ThinkBook into a backpack just like I would any laptop I’m commuting with, and I also closed the lid while the display was still extended — putting it in a ridiculous-looking overbite position — and all was fine.

As for the ThinkBook’s conventional laptop stuff, it’s a fairly table stakes thin and light productivity machine — but not one with a bounty of ports. It can be configured with up to an Intel Core Ultra 7 Series 2 processor, 1TB SSD, and 32GB of DDR5x dual-channel RAM. It’s got just two Thunderbolt 4 ports and a 3.5mm headphone jack, so be prepared to live the dongle life if you need USB-A or a card reader.

One thing you may not need on your hub is an HDMI-out, as Lenovo told us the ThinkBook is not really designed to be used with external monitors. That’s because Lenovo had to program its extra screen real estate as a second monitor in Windows since Microsoft doesn’t have baked-in support for a setup like this. Even in our short demo, it didn’t take long to see some concerning and potentially deal-breaking software stuff. For example, you can’t snap windows and apps to the bottom portion of the extended screen. Instead, you have to open Lenovo’s built-in software and pin it to that window down there. This could be streamlined if Microsoft adds support for rollable displays in a future Windows update, but I wouldn’t bank on that happening soon.

While I’m super excited to see the ThinkBook Plus actually become a real thing people can buy, I fear the software and OS limitations may hold back its fun potential and make it too fussy. I’m very curious to test it over the long term to see what living the rollable life is like.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

When it comes to reproductive health tech, wearable makers tend to focus on one of two things: period tracking and fertility windows. But at CES 2025, health startup identifyHer wants to shake up that narrative with Peri, a wearable designed to help people track and manage perimenopause symptoms.

Perimenopause refers to the transitional period before menopause when the ovaries gradually stop working. Hormones like estrogen and progesterone begin to decrease, which, in turn, can lead to mood changes, irregular periods, hot flashes, and night sweats. Perimenopause symptoms can vary widely from person to person and last four to eight years on average — though it can be as short as a few months or as long as a decade.

Peri’s press release notes that the device will provide “objective data on perimenopausal symptoms, lifestyle, and sleep, as well as actionable insights and encouragement to better understand the changes their bodies are undergoing.” In official pictures, the device itself appears to be pill-shaped and adheres to a person’s torso as opposed to their wrist or finger, like most other health trackers.

“We will keep the specific sensors confidential until we open pre-orders,” says Peri cofounder Heidi Davis, though Davis acknowledges that none of the sensors in the device are new or proprietary. “Our breakthrough lies in the digital fingerprints we have identified through three years of R&D, collecting sensor data from women experiencing perimenopause.”

Davis says those “fingerprints” were then used to develop algorithms that provide continuous data on hot flashes, night sweats, and anxiety in perimenopausal women. One surprising finding, Davis says, is that body temperature isn’t a reliable indicator of hot flashes. Extra effort was also put in to ensure the algorithms weren’t swayed by things like exercise or warm weather, which could affect heart rate, sweating, or increase body temperature.

Image: Peri, identifyHer

Davis says identifyHer also intentionally decided to forgo a limb-based tracker.

“During the early stages of development, we tested our sensors on the limbs but found that we could not identify the digital fingerprints for some of the typical symptoms of perimenopause,” Davis explains, noting that the torso delivers the most accurate readings and is where hot flashes and night sweats are strongest.

As promising as this all sounds, none of Peri’s tech is proven just yet. We’ll have to see how Peri fares when it launches, which is expected to be in mid-2025. That said, its mission to bring further clarity to women’s reproductive health — a historically understudied area — is one wearable makers and researchers alike have widely pursued in recent years. Oura, for instance, has conducted its own study on pregnancy prediction, while Apple also launched its own long-term, large-scale Women’s Health Study using the Apple Watch. It’s just finally nice to see some traction on a less-studied stage of reproductive health.