Vibrant smartphone colors aren’t nearly as common as many wish, with most devices often coming in blacks and whites, and plenty of bland offerings beyond that. With its upcoming “blue” for the Galaxy S25 Ultra, though, Samsung might be going for a color that’s so subdued, it just has to be a joke.
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In recent years, reflecting on the past 12 months has seemed to bring back nothing but woe. Surprisingly, though, 2024 saw a higher number of candidates for good things in tech than bad. In spite of the continued AI onslaught, widespread dissatisfaction and worldwide political conflict, there were some bright spots this year that put smiles on faces and took minds off things. As we get ready to start saying "2025" when making plans, here’s hoping that reminiscing about the best things in tech in 2024 can help us remember joyful times.
You likely don’t know the name LocalThunk, which is the handle of a Canadian game developer who has yet to share his real identity. You do, however, know his handywork. LocalThunk made a little game called Balatro, which has been the indie success story of the year. The massive cultural footprint of this game instantly put him on the Mount Rushmore of solo developers, alongside Daisuke Amaya (Cave Story), Markus Persson (Minecraft), Lucas Pope (Papers, Please) and Eric Barone (Stardew Valley), among others.
Balatro — which can justly be described as a wacky full-fledged sequel to poker —came out back in February, and has since sold millions of copies across multiple platforms. It has popped up on numerous 2024 best-of lists and even nabbed a nomination for GOTY at The Game Awards. To call it a hit is something of an understatement. Balatro has become so popular that it has crossed over with other gaming franchises and inspired a physical deck of cards.
LocalThunk is now, very likely, worth a whole lot of money. Good for him. He created something new that everyone wanted, a venture that took three years. Despite the similarities to poker, the developer is extremely committed to keeping Balatro pure and out of the hands of gambling platforms. He recently revealed that he created a will that stipulated that the IP never be sold or licensed to any gambling company or casino.
I highly recommend checking out the game, which is available for both consoles and mobile devices. It will likely burn into your brain, leaving you unable to think or talk about anything else. Actually, wait until you have some time off work before giving it a download. — Lawrence Bonk, contributing writer
After several months in an invitation-only beta, Bluesky finally ditched its waitlist and opened to everyone at the start of 2024. At the time, it had just over 3 million users, a handful of employees and a lot of ideas about how to build a better space for public conversations. Since then, the service has grown to more than 25 million users, including a number of celebrities, politicians and other prominent figures who were once active on X.
Bluesky is still very much an underdog. Meta’s Threads has more than 10 times as many total users and far more resources. Even so, Bluesky has notched some significant wins. The open source service nearly tripled in size in the last few months of the year, thanks to a surge in new users following the election. The platform has also had an outsized influence when it comes to features, with Meta already copying unique ideas like starter packs and custom feeds.
Bluesky isn’t without issues — it needs to come up with a better approach to verification for example — but it’s still our best hope for an open, decentralized platform not controlled by a multibillion dollar advertising company. While Meta is reportedly preparing to point its ad machine at Threads and has already throttled the reach of political content, Bluesky’s leaders have made it clear they want to take a different approach. And while it’s hard to imagine Bluesky’s growth eclipsing Threads anytime soon, Bluesky feels more relevant than ever. — Karissa Bell, senior reporter
We’ve seen so many competing designs on foldable phones over the years. Samsung started out with an inward folding hinge on the original Galaxy Fold and stuck with it as the Z Fold line has morphed into the long, skinny baton-like devices we have today. Then there were others like the Huawei Mate X which featured outward folding builds. More recently, companies have teased the first generation of gadgets with tri-folding displays. But after testing out Google’s Pixel 9 Pro Fold this year, it feels like keeping things simple was the winning formula all along.
That’s because instead of trying to create a foldable with a unique aspect ratio or screen size, Google basically took the exterior display from the standard Pixel 9 and then installed a flexible display almost exactly twice the size on the inside. So when it’s closed, you have a phone that looks, feels and operates just like a typical glass-brick but when opened can also expand to become a mini tablet. The Pixel 9 Pro Fold also has the best cameras on any foldable on sale today while not being much thicker or heavier than its more traditional siblings. But perhaps the biggest victory is just seeing how much of a jump in build quality and usability the Pro Fold offers over its predecessor without making any major sacrifices. I just wish it was a bit more affordable so more people could experience the magic of a big foldable phone. — Sam Rutherford, senior reviewer
For years, companies like Meta and Snap have hyped up the promise of augmented reality — not just the animated selfie lenses and other effects we can see on our phones, but standalone hardware capable of overlaying information onto the world around us. But despite these promises, actual AR glasses felt just out of reach.
This year, that finally started to change. Snap released its second pair of AR Spectacles, and Meta finally showed off its Orion AR glasses prototype. After trying out both, it’s easy to see why these companies have invested so much time and money on these projects. To be clear, both companies still have a lot of work ahead of them if they want their AR glasses to turn into a product their users will want to actually buy. Right now, the components are still too expensive, and the glasses are way too bulky (this is especially true for Snap, if the social media reactions to my selfies are any indication). But after years of hearing little more than lofty promises and sporadic research updates, we finally saw real progress.
Snap has lined up dozens of developers, including Niantic, Lego and Industrial Light and Magic who are already building apps for AR. Meta is, for now, keeping its AR work internal, but its neural wristband — which may be coming to a future pair of its RayBan-branded glasses — feels like a game-changer for next-gen controllers. So while AR glasses aren’t ready to replace our phones just yet, it’s getting a lot easier to imagine a world in which they might. — K.B.
The classic clamshell with a screen up top and a physical keyboard down below isn’t going away anytime soon. But this year, the Zenbook Duo showed that laptops still have plenty of room for improvement. That’s because after multiple attempts by various manufacturers to refine and streamline dual-screen laptops, ASUS finally put everything together into a single cohesive package with the Zenbook Duo. It packs not one but two 14-inch OLED displays with 120Hz refresh rates, solid performance, a surprisingly good selection of ports (including full-size HDMI) and a built-in kickstand. And weighing 3.6 pounds and measuring 0.78 inches at its thickest, it's not much bigger or heftier than more traditional rivals.
You also get a physical keyboard, except this one connects wirelessly via Bluetooth and can be either placed on top of the lower screen like a normal laptop or moved practically anywhere you want. This allows the Zenbook Duo to transform into something like a portable all-in-one complete with two stacked displays, which are truly excellent for multitasking. And because the keyboard also charges wirelessly, you never have to worry about keeping it topped off. But the best part is that starting at $1,500, it doesn’t cost that much more than a typical premium notebook either, so even when you’re traveling you never have to be limited to a single, tiny display. — S.R.
DJI’s tiny $200 Neo drone blew into the content creator market like a tornado. It was relatively cheap and simple to use, allowing beginners to create stunning aerial video at the touch of a button, while taking off and landing on their palms. At the same time, the Neo offered advanced features like manual piloting with a phone or controller, subject tracking and even impressive acrobatics.
Weighing just 156 grams and equipped with people-safe propeller guards, DJI’s smallest drone can be piloted nearly anywhere with no permit needed. And unlike Snap’s Pixy drone, it’s far more than a toy.. It can fly at speeds up to 36 MPH and perform tricks like flips and slides. It also offers reasonably high-quality 4K 30p video. All of that allows creators to track themselves when walking, biking or vlogging, adding high-quality aerial video that was previously inaccessible for most.
There are some negative points. The Neo lacks any obstacle detection sensors, so you need to be careful when flying it to avoid crashes. Video quality isn’t quite as good as slightly more expensive drones like the DJI Mini 3. And the propeller noise is pretty offensive if you plan to operate it around a lot of people. Perhaps the biggest problem is that DJI’s products might be banned in the US by 2026, even though it escaped that fate this year.
For $200, though, it offers excellent value and opens up new creative possibilities for content creators. Much like the company’s incredibly popular Osmo Pocket 3, the Neo shows how DJI is innovating in the creator space to a higher level than rivals like Sony or Canon. — Steve Dent, contributing writer
reMarkable’s distraction-free writing slates have always offered an elegant alternative to other tablets. The second generation model is great, but the advent of the Paper Pro has highlighted where that device was lacking. It’s certainly one of the best pieces of hardware I’ve tested this year and, if I owned one, I’d likely make it a key part of my daily workflow. The bigger display, faster internals and the fact it can now render colors elevates it above the competition. It’s gone from a useful tool to an essential one, especially if you need to wrench yourself away from the distractions of the internet.
It’s still far too expensive for what it is, and qualifies as a luxury purchase in these straightened times. It won’t stack up in a spec-for-spec comparison to an iPad, even if they’re clearly catering for two very different audiences. But, judging it on its merits as a piece of technology, it does the job it was built to do far better than anything else on the market. What can I say, I just think it's neat. — Daniel Cooper, senior reporter
Maybe my AI dalliances are far too mundane – I spend more time trying to get worthwhile shopping advice from Claude and ChatGPT, for instance, rather than playing around with music generators like Suno or even image creators like Dall-E. But for this podcast fan, it’s Google’s NotebookLM that was the big AI revelation of 2024.
The audio offshoot of Google’s Project Tailwind, an AI-infused notebook application, NotebookLM synthesizes a full-on podcast that summarizes the documents, videos or links you feed it. Delivered as a dialogue between male and female co-hosts, it feels like a next-gen two-person version of the Duplex software agent that Google unveiled in 2018. The resulting audio stories (just a few minutes in length) wouldn’t sound terribly out of place on your local NPR station, right down to copious use of “ums,” “ahs,” pauses and co-hosts talking over each other with a relevant detail or two. Yes, it doesn’t have any more depth than the chatter on the average TV morning show, occasionally botches pronunciation – sometimes spelling out common acronyms letter by letter, for instance – and it’s just as prone to hallucinations as any other current AI model. And I certainly don’t think real podcast hosts have anything to fear here (at least, not yet.)
But to me, NotebookLM doesn’t feel like the rest of the AI slop that’s invading the web these days. It’s a win on three fronts: The baseline version is free, it’s dead simple to use (just feed it one or more links, or a blob of text) – and it can be downright fun. This was the system’s take when I fed it the full text of Moby Dick, for example – and that’s small potatoes compared to, say, the hosts “discovering” they’re not human. Thankfully, unlike the plethora of projects that Google summarily kills off, NotebookLM seems to be flourishing. I haven’t tried the new “phone in” feature or the paid Plus subscription, but both suggest that we’ll be hearing more from Audio Overviews in 2025. — John Falcone, executive editor
For the past decade, the story around laptop and desktop CPUs has basically been a back and forth between Intel and AMD. At times, AMD’s sheer ambition and aggressive pricing would make its chips the PC enthusiast choice, but then Intel would also hit back with innovations like its 12th-gen hybrid processors. When Apple decided to move away from Intel’s chips in 2020, and proved that its own mobile Arm architecture could dramatically outpace x86 and x64 designs, it was clear that the industry was ready to shift beyond the AMD and Intel rivalry.
So it really was only a matter of time until Qualcomm followed in Apple’s footsteps and released its Snapdragon X Elite chips, which powered the new Surface Pro, Surface Laptop and other Copilot+ PCs. Those mobile chips were faster than ever before, far more efficient than Intel and AMD’s best, and they were aided by some timely Windows on Arm improvements. While you may still run into some older Windows apps that don’t run on Arm machines, the experience today is dramatically better than it was just a few years ago.
And sure, the race to equip CPUs with better neural processing units (NPUs) for AI work is a major reason chipmakers were eager to make a huge splash in 2024. Intel’s Lunar Lake hardware and AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 chips were laser-focused on delivering powerful AI capabilities. But it turns out we’re still waiting to see what those NPUs can really do. Microsoft’s Recall AI feature has only just begun rolling out to willing testers, and it still can’t effectively filter out credit card and social security numbers.— Devindra Hardawar, senior reviewer
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/techs-biggest-winners-in-2024-180015837.html?src=rss©
© Engadget
Here is a timeline of the events that led fledgling automaker Fisker to file for bankruptcy.
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Google’s Circle to Search feature, which first debuted on Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel devices in early 2024, is now coming to the Nothing Phone series with the new Android 15 update that launched this month.
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Samsung is widely expected to host a launch event for the Galaxy S25 series on January 22, with the company reportedly also showing off the Galaxy Ring 2 and its smart glasses at the same event.
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It’s the time of year when many of us are thinking about goals and resolutions for the year ahead. The latest video from Apple points to Apple Watch as the device that can help you ‘quit quitting’ on your goals.
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LG is bringing a lamp that doubles as a small garden to CES 2025. The "indoor gardening appliance" is designed for apartment dwellers or anyone whose otherwise backyard-challenged to enjoy the benefits of homegrown produce.
During the day, LG says the lamp with a circular lampshade shines LEDs in five different intensities on whichever plants you want to grow. Then, at night, the lights fire upwards to create cozy mood lighting in whatever room you put the lamp in. If you'd prefer something that's more compact and armchair-height, LG also has a version that the size of a side table.
The taller, standing lamp can hold up to 20 plants at a time, according to LG, and the whole setup is height adjustable so that you can accommodate larger leafy greens or small herbs and flowers. The real beauty of LG's design, though, is that you don't need to worry about watering. There's a 1.5 gallon tank built in to the base of the lamp that can disperse the appropriate amount of liquid for whatever you have planted. Both lamps are also connected to LG's ThinQ app so you can adjust lighting and watering schedules remotely.
LG introduced its previous take on an indoor gardening tool, the LG Tiiun, at CES 2022. That larger, fridge-shaped appliance could also automatically grow and water plants, but was far less aesthetically-pleasing than the company's new lamp. With all of the features it has on board, LG's new lamp is really just one Sonos speaker away from being the ultimate living room appliance. At least until tech companies find another use for lamps.
LG's new indoor gardening appliance doesn't have a release date or an official price, but expect the company to share more details once CES 2025 officially starts.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/lg-found-a-new-job-for-your-standing-lamp-173446654.html?src=rss©
© LG
Loading up HDR photos and videos can be a great way of showcasing the fancy display on your new phone and testing just how bright it can get. But sometimes, especially at night, you might not want your screen to crank into overdrive with blinding highlights just because someone posted a random video to Instagram in HDR. (Devices are increasingly set to capture video with the increased dynamic range by default, so let’s not blame each other.)
With its forthcoming One UI 7 update that’s currently in beta, Samsung is giving Galaxy phone owners a system-wide kill switch for disabling HDR content. As covered by 9to5Google, there’s a new “Super HDR” toggle in the settings menu.
The description — “automatically adjust the display to show the full range of colors and contrast in pictures taken with Galaxy devices” — is a bit misleading, since it turns out that toggling this on will keep your display brightness in check across all apps. But that’s exactly the end result that I’d want.
On the iPhone side, Apple currently has no such setting that’s specific to HDR. It’s possible to avoid HDR content by enabling low power mode on your iPhone, but doing so makes a ton of other system changes that might be overkill.
If you’re looking for a reprieve from HDR on Instagram in particular, you can disable it in the app’s settings in the “media quality” section. (I take credit for this after complaining about the issue a couple years ago.) That only applies to iOS, though. The option doesn’t exist on Android, which makes Samsung’s new toggle all the more useful.
Microsoft and OpenAI have a very specific, internal definition of artificial general intelligence (AGI) based on the startup’s profits, according to a new report from The Information. And by this definition, OpenAI is many years away from reaching it. The two companies reportedly signed an agreement last year stating OpenAI has only achieved AGI when […]
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The idea that some apps are “must-haves” or “essentials” for your Android phone is bound to be subjective, especially with millions to consider and choose from.
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One of the main draws to Samsung’s ecosystem is how well devices work together. While it isn’t exactly seamless yet, some features allow users to take advantage of the bridge in similar operating systems. One upcoming feature in One UI 7 will seemingly allow users to paste recent photos straight from Galaxy phones to Galaxy Books in certain apps.
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Today’s collection of fresh new deals are now at the ready starting with up to $400 off Dell’s Inspiron 14 Plus Snapdragon Copilot+ PC alongside the return of Galaxy Tab S10+/Ultra configurations at up to $200 off as part of the now Samsung New Year’s Savings sale. We also spotted some lows on TCL’s VRR Q65 QLED Google Smart TVs starting from $218, these 190MB/s SanDisk Extreme microSD offers, Anker’s sweet 250W desktop charging station with the onboard display, and even more from $2.50. Scope everything out down below.
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HDR content looks amazing, until it burns your retinas at 11pm in a dark room. Annoyingly, the ability to turn off HDR content on Android devices has been missing, but Samsung is finally providing an option with its One UI 7 update for Galaxy devices.
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Today’s 9to5Toys Lunch Break is now ready to go with a headliner deal featuring Apple’s elevated 16GB/512GB M4 Mac mini now down at the Amazon all-time low with $100 in savings. That deal joins the return of Black Friday pricing on Apple Pencil Pro at Amazon alongside a series of M4 iMac configurations at up to $200 off. You’ll also find ongoing all-time lows on M4 Pro MacBook Pro models and a host of charging gear starting from just $5.
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The iPhone is the most important device in many users’ lives, and it’s made even better with a paired Apple Watch. Here are three Apple Watch features that fix some common iPhone problems.
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Elon Musk’s jets took over 355 flights this year, with 31 of those flights heading to or from near Mar-a-Lago.
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Samsung is set to unveil the Galaxy S25 series in just a few weeks and while we’ve seen a lot of leaks so far, new renders posted by dbrand offer the best look yet at the design of the company’s upcoming trio.
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