xAI has released an iOS app in the US for its Grok chatbot, as spotted earlier by TechCrunch. The standalone app version of the chatbot, which xAI calls a beta, can perform the same functions as the one built into X, as it can field real-time information, answer questions, and generate images.

xAI started testing Grok’s standalone iOS app in December in a handful of countries. There’s no word on when it may come to Android.

Though Grok was initially only available to X Premium subscribers, the platform started letting all users access the chatbot last month, bringing it in line with other free-to-use chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot.

As pointed out by TechCrunch, it seems xAI is also working on a dedicated Grok.com website that currently has a “coming soon” message on it. After raising $6 billion in June, xAI reported another $6 billion funding round, including from “strategic investors” like Nvidia and AMD.

Following the arrival of the first Thunderbolt 5 cables last July and the first Thunderbolt 5 dock last September, it might finally be time to start upgrading your external storage to take advantage of the increased performance. It’s been a slow rollout for Thunderbolt 5 hardware following its official reveal in September 2023, but companies like Seagate, OWC, and Sabrent finally have SSDs en route supporting the new standard.

Seagate announced its new Thunderbolt 5 LaCie Rugged SSD Pro5 external drive at CES this week. The company says it will be available sometime this month in a 2TB version for $399.99 and a 4TB version for $599.99. They’ll offer read and write speeds of 6,700MB/s and 5,300MB/s, respectively.

Image: Seagate

Like previous LaCie rugged drives, the new SSD comes in a rubber enclosure in blue, black, and orange color options, helping it survive drops from heights of up to three meters. It’s also waterproof with an IP68 rating, so it can survive a complete dunking to depths of one meter.

Image: Sabrent

There are a few other choices that have been announced, too, though with varying levels of availability. Sabrent, for example, was actually one of the first companies to announce a Thunderbolt 5 SSD last August, but the SSD isn’t out yet. The Rocket XTRM 5 comes in a silicone sleeve for extra protection from falls, and the company says it can reach read and write speeds of 6,000MB/s and 5,000MB/s, respectively. It’s expected to be available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities but is still listed as only being available for preorder through Sabrent’s website.

Image: OWC

OWC announced its Envoy Ultra Thunderbolt 5 SSD last September. The company says the external drive is water-resistant, dust-resistant, and crushproof, and offers read speeds of over 6,000MB/s. When it was announced, OWC said the Envoy Ultra would be available in a 2TB version for $399.99 and a 4TB version for $599.99, with shipping starting in late October. The first shipments of the drives sold out, but it’s still available for preorder through OWC’s website with an expected ship date of mid-January 2025.

If you’d rather take a DIY approach, several Thunderbolt 5-compatible SSD enclosures have also been announced over the past few months.

However, despite the promised performance improvements, and the yearlong wait for hardware to finally materialize, upgrading your setup to Thunderbolt 5 might still have a few speed bumps. That’s what Mark Hachman, the senior editor of PCWorld, discovered when trying to get a Maingear ML-17 laptop, Kensington’s Thunderbolt 5 dock, OWC’s Envoy Ultra SSD, and Acer’s Nitro XV5 displays to play nice. The setup was plagued by laggy performance and slow transfer speeds.

It all still felt not quite ready for primetime, Hachman found. “When you buy (or test) bleeding-edge hardware, sometimes you’re the one that ends up with the cuts,” Hachman said.

The PC handheld space continues to grow, and the biggest of all is Acer’s new Nitro Blaze 11. As soon as I saw it announced at CES, I knew I had to try and get it in my hands, at least for the sheer curiosity of “Will this thing even fit in my hands?” The answer is yes — though kind of just barely.

I brought a Steam Deck OLED with me for a quick size and feel comparison. One of the first things I noticed is that it’s much more precarious to pick up the Blaze 11 the way I’m used to grabbing the Steam Deck: by gripping it on the top and bottom edges. My fingers just barely stretch far enough for this position. Once in hand, the 2.3-pound Blaze 11 actually feels lighter than you’d expect, making it not too unwieldy if you do most of your “portable” gaming at home on the couch like I do. (Playing it in bed may be a hazard to your face.)

While the Blaze 11 isn’t as heavy as I feared, the Steam Deck OLED’s 1.41 pounds feel like a featherweight in comparison. The Deck also feels a little more solidly built. Acer’s handheld isn’t flimsy, but it did seem cheaper.

But credit where credit’s due: playing games on such a big screen in your hands is a treat, and the kickstand felt solid for propping it up in tablet mode with detached controllers, which the Steam Deck can’t do. Acer also gets points for using Hall effect sticks and triggers.

We’ll have to wait and see how this jumbo $1,099 handheld fares when it launches in Q2 2025, as the competition heats up with the impending arrival of the Lenovo Legion Go S and the constantly leaking Nintendo Switch 2. In the meantime, here are a bunch of pictures of the Blaze 11 and the Steam Deck OLED.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

Xbox gamers have a growing list of options among the best Xbox controllers, but even expensive ones like the Xbox Elite Series 2 can develop stick drift and other issues.

If you’re tired of shelling out for unreliable controllers, 8Bitdo’s latest wired Xbox models with Hall effect analog sticks and triggers can offer affordable relief, as you can get them for 33 percent off right now. That includes the 8BitDo Ultimate controller, which has dropped to a record low $29.99 ($15 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and 8BitDo. The DualShock-like 8BitDo Pro 2 is also on sale at Amazon and 8BitDo starting at $29.99 (about $15 off), which is only $2 more than the lowest price to date.

8BitDo’s wired Xbox controllers have been on the market for a few years now, so even if you already have one, you may have missed the refreshed Hall effect models. The older ones have ALPS-based sticks, which are commonly used in the standard controllers that ship with major consoles. They use mechanically moving parts and sensors to read the sticks’ positioning, which can eventually degrade and cause misreads to the point that your in-game characters can move even when you’re not touching the controller.

Hall effect sticks, instead, use magnetism and the sensors don’t have moving parts, and while they aren’t completely immune to eventually getting stick drift, they should last much longer. That doesn’t mean you can’t still break a controller from excessive sweaty rounds of Marvel Rivals. The triggers on both controllers benefit from similar technology and also include dedicated vibration motors.

The 8BitDo Ultimate and 8BitDo Pro 2 offer other perks that are nice to have at this price point, too, like dual rear buttons, software-based remapping (the 8BitDo Ultimate supports on-the-fly switching between three profiles using a dedicated button), and configurable sensitivity and vibration settings. In addition to Xbox One, Series X, and Series S, you can also use the controllers on Windows PCs, Android, and iOS devices by plugging them in using the detachable USB-C cable.

Following FuboTV’s recent move to settle its antitrust lawsuit with Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery over the impending launch of their Venu Sports streaming service, DirectTV and EchoStar are urging the courts to consider how other TV distributors could still be shut out of the sports streaming space.

On Monday, Fubo announced that, as part of its plan to merge with Hulu + Live TV, it would also drop its lawsuit against Disney, Fox, and WBD alleging that their collaboration on Venu Sports violated US antitrust laws. The settlement outlines how Hulu + Live TV and Fubo can create a new multichannel video programming distributor that Disney would own 70 percent of. But the lawsuit’s dismissal also lifted the injunction to halt Venu’s launch which US District Judge Margaret M. Garnett passed down last August.

Because Venu Sports now has a much more realistic chance of coming to market, DirectTV and EchoStar are voicing concerns about how Fubo’s proposed Hulu deal may exacerbate, rather than properly address, the core issue of sports streaming anticompetitiveness. In a letter to Garnett, DirectTV argued that while Venu’s venture partners have paid Fubo “to ensure cooperation from an aggrieved competitor,” they have also restored “an anticompetitive runway for the JV Defendants to control the future of the live pay TV market.”

DirectTV is just one of several non-parties that expressed “grave concerns” about the impact Venu would have on competition for sports programming, given that Venu would “offer content in a manner that [the Defendants] do not allow DirectTV or other distributors to offer to consumers,” DirectTV’s lawyers said.

In its own letter to Garnett, EchoStar’s legal team insisted that the original injunction blocked Disney, Fox, and WBD’s “scheme to monopolize the pay-TV market and, once accomplished, charge inflated prices to millions of Americans.”

“The parties’ settlement appears designed to eliminate court jurisdiction over this multifarious harm by effectuating the preliminary injunction’s expiration, rather than addressing the underlying competition issues,” EchoStar said. “Now, with the injunction undone by voluntary dismissal, DISH, Sling, and other distributors will suffer antitrust injury.”

As fires rage across Los Angeles and tens of thousands flee their homes, the usual suspects have decided to blame the blazes on their political enemies. In a series of posts on Truth Social, President-elect Donald Trump claimed firefighters’ inability to get the fires under control was due to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s water policies, including an effort to “protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!).” Meanwhile, on X, Elon Musk suggested that the fires were spreading due to the city fire chief’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. “DEI means people DIE,” Musk wrote in a Wednesday night post.

Five people have indeed died in the Eaton fire thus far, and upward of 130,000 Los Angeles County residents are under evacuation orders, according to the Los Angeles Times. But the rampant spread of the fires isn’t due to the delta smelt, DEI, or even — as Trump, Musk, and scores of mainstream publications have falsely claimed — cuts to the Los Angeles Fire Department’s budget. These claims aren’t without consequence. Last year, FEMA workers received threats on TikTok and other social media platforms as rampant disinformation spread in the wake of the devastation caused by hurricanes Milton and Helene.

The first wave of disinformation focused on fire hydrants in the Pacific Palisades, which abruptly ran out of water on Tuesday night as firefighters attempted to put out the initial blaze. The hydrants, Trump said, were running dry because of Newsom’s water policies. “I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA!” Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday. “He is the blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster!” In a separate post, Trump claimed Newsom had “refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way.”

Newsom’s office responded on Wednesday, clarifying that the declaration Trump referred to in his post didn’t exist. “There is no such document as the water restoration declaration – that is pure fiction,” Newsom communications director Izzy Gardon told CalMatters. “The Governor is focused on protecting people, not playing politics, and making sure firefighters have all the resources they need.”

Mark Gold, a board member of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, told the outlet that statewide water management policies, including efforts to protect the delta smelt, had nothing to do with the lack of water in the hydrants. “Tying Bay-Delta management into devastating wildfires that have cost people’s lives and homes is nothing short of irresponsible, and it’s happening at a time when the Metropolitan Water District has the most water stored in its system in the history of the agency,” Gold said. “It’s not a matter of having enough water coming from Northern California to put out a fire. It’s about the continued devastating impacts of a changing climate.”

The lack of water in the Pacific Palisades hydrants was instead due to a reduction in water pressure caused by increased demand, the LA Times reported. Janisse Quiñones, the chief executive and chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, told the paper that so much water was being used that the utility wasn’t able to fill the tanks quickly enough. The demand for water at lower elevations was also preventing the utility from refilling tanks at higher elevations, according to the LA Times.

Wednesday night, as powerful Santa Ana winds spread the fires to Altadena, Pasadena, and the Hollywood Hills, right-wing influencers accused city officials of slashing the fire department’s budget and prioritizing diversity programs over sound fire prevention policy — which Musk reposted on X.

But as Politico pointed out, Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass didn’t cut $23 million from the fire department’s budget, a claim that has been repeated by critics on both the right and the left, some of whom said Bass cut fire department funding to pay for a new police contract. The fire department’s budget actually increased by more than $50 million over the previous year, according to Politico, though others have noted that LA fire chief Kristin Crowley criticized Bass’ decision to cut $7 million from the department’s overtime budget just a few weeks before the Palisades fire. “The reduction … has severely limited the department’s capacity to prepare for, train for, and respond to large-scale emergencies, including wildfires,” Crowley wrote in a December 4th memo.

This nuance is, of course, being lost on X, where influencers have also begun posting AI-generated images of looters descending upon the Palisades and the Hollywood sign engulfed in flames. Disinformation is spreading like... you can probably guess what.

You may be wondering how to delete your Facebook account now that fact-checking is no longer considered important, and Meta’s changing its definition of what constitutes Hateful Conduct. It’s easy to do, and we’ll show you how. But you should download all your stuff first.

The following instructions are for the web version of Facebook, but you can follow pretty much the same sequence on the mobile app.

Download your archives

Your Facebook archives contain just about all of the pertinent information related to your account, including your photos, active sessions, chat history, IP addresses, facial recognition data, and which ads you clicked. That’s personal information you should save.

• Click on your personal icon in the upper-right corner.
• Go to Settings & Privacy > Settings.
• Click on the Accounts Center box on the left.

• Go to Your information and permissions on the left, and then Download Your Information > Download or transfer information.
• You can choose to transfer information from your Facebook or Instagram account (or both).
• You now have...

Read the full story at The Verge.

Google and Microsoft are the latest tech companies to donate to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration. Each company contributed $1 million to the fund — the same amount pledged by Meta, Amazon, Sam Altman, and Tim Cook.

In a statement to CNBC, Karan Bhatia, Google’s global head of government affairs and public policy, said the company is supporting the inauguration “with a livestream on YouTube and a direct link on our homepage,” as well as with a financial contribution. The donation may be part of Google’s larger strategy to win over Trump, who has threatened to break up the tech giant or shut it down altogether.

Microsoft, which is also giving $1 million, previously contributed $500,000 to Trump’s first inauguration and donated the same amount to President Joe Biden’s inauguration fund, a company spokesperson told CNBC. Per CNBC, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has met with Trump multiple times, and was involved in negotiations over acquiring TikTok in 2020, when Trump tried to ban the app in the US.

The Last of Us Part 2 remaster is joining the PlayStation Network club. That means you’ll need to link a PSN account if you want to play the game after buying it on Steam, Epic Games, and other PC platforms when it launches in April, as spotted earlier by Video Games Chronicle.

The requirement has proven very unpopular with other Sony titles released on PC, including Ghost of Tsushima, God of War Ragnarök, and the Horizon Zero Dawn remaster. Last year, Helldiver players review-bombed the game after it suddenly introduced PSN account linking, leading Sony to walk back on the requirement completely.

Screenshot: Steam

It’s still not clear why Sony requires a PSN account to play The Last of Us Part 2, as it doesn’t have any multiplayer features, and the requirement may also prevent people across dozens of countries where PSN isn’t supported from playing the game.

The Last of Us Part 2 remaster launches on PC on April 3rd for $49.99.

Pictures posted on social media give us a look at a facelifted Tesla Model Y “Juniper” refresh that lets go of the original Model 3 headlight style in favor of a new front lightbar setup that reminds me of the Chevy Equinox EV. As reported by InsideEVs, Instagram car spy account Cochespias1 and X user DominicBRNKMN posted spy shots of the updated Model Y as it drove around on snowy grounds.

Although the images are a bit blurry, they also show a new rear end with a Cybertruck-ish lightbar similar to the one seen in a July leak.

Reuters first reported Tesla was working on a Model Y redesign in early 2023 before a purported mule was seen in the wild last year with the front and rear camouflaged. The Model Y is one of the top-selling vehicles in the world, and it’s also the last vehicle Tesla makes that still has stalks for changing gears and activating turn signals.

As it’s essentially unchanged since launching in 2020, barring a center console refresh, it’s about due for a makeover. Tesla’s most recent redesign was for the Model 3 “Highland” that made its US debut last year, which also mainly changed the front and rear, along with other tweaks to make it quieter and improve the ride quality.

It’s unknown when Tesla might plan to launch the new Model Y, but previous reports suggested the automaker is getting set to build a redesigned six-seater Model Y in China for late 2025.

New day, new Nintendo Switch 2 leaks. Nintendo is getting ever-closer to its April 2025 deadline to reveal its Switch successor, but thanks new renders from OnLeaks and 91Mobiles, we may now have an even better idea of what the new console might look like.

If you’ve been following our coverage of other Switch 2 leaks, these renders shouldn’t look too surprising. According to the new renders, the console will resemble the original Switch, but it will be bigger, with an 8.4-inch screen. Interestingly, OnLeaks and 91Mobiles report that the screen will “most likely” be an “OLED panel” — previous reports have said the console would have an LCD screen.

The renders show that the top of the Switch 2 will feature a power button, a volume rocker, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a game card slot, and, new for the Switch 2, a USB-C port. OnLeaks and 91Mobiles also say that “there also seems to be a sensor of sorts” and they speculate that “this might be an ambient light sensor or something else.” These renders also have a U-shaped kickstand that has appeared in other leaks.

As for the Joy-Cons, OnLeaks and 91Mobiles’ renders show the mysterious second new button on the right Joy-Con. However, they say the new button is above the Home button; other leaks have included the new button below it. The Joy-Cons in the renders have the large buttons in the back that are apparently used to detach the controllers from the console, which are apparently attached magnetically.

The renders also show an interesting color scheme for the Joy-Cons: they are mostly black but have color accents — light blue on the left one and orange on the right — under the joystick pads and on the bumped-out part of the controllers with the SL and SR buttons. A similar design popped up earlier this month for an alleged Switch 2 left Joy-Con with light blue accents. I love it, personally.

Hopefully, given the tidal wave of recent leaks, we don’t have to wait too much longer for Nintendo to officially announce the new console. But whenever the console actually launches, it’s going to have some stiff competition.

Amazon’s massive advertising business, which is only surpassed in the US by Google and Meta, is about to get bigger. In addition to selling ads on its sprawling marketplace, it will now let other retailers use the technology powering its $50 billion business on their own websites, as reported earlier by Adweek.

The company’s new Retail Ad Service beta will let other online stores “Deliver contextually relevant ads by leveraging Amazon’s two decades of ad tech expertise, driven by machine learning models trained on trillions of shopping signals” across their product, search, and browsing pages.

It also plugs the retailers into Amazon’s existing advertising customers, as brands already using Amazon’s ad system can choose to place their ads on third-party sites. The setup also allows Amazon to pull more profit from “retail media” (ads you see in stores or while shopping online) even when the shopping isn’t happening on its site, and could give it access to more data — which is something the FTC may have questions about.

The path of this business is similar to the launch of Amazon Web Services, which the company built to keep its online marketplace running and loading quickly 24/7 before selling access to the servers as a backbone for other companies’ operations, as noted by CNBC.

If there were some common themes among the chargers and portable power solutions announced at CES this year, it would be more power and more convenience through built-in cables. It’s not a new idea, but with most devices now being USB-C-compatible, it’s easier for companies to integrate charging cables without having to accommodate competing charging standards.

Here are some of the standout charging solutions making their debut at CES this year.

Ugreen Nexode Desktop Charger 500W

Image: Ugreen

If you’ve got a desk overflowing with laptops and a power strip overpacked with adapters, Ugreen has upgraded its Nexode desk charger with 500W of power output. That’s shared across five USB-C ports and a single USB-A port. The topmost USB-C port delivers up to 240W of power, while the other five share 260W. That’s enough power to charge five laptops simultaneously, assuming four of them don’t need more than 60W. It’s expected to be available as soon as March 2025.

Anker Charger (140W) with display

Image: Anker

As the size and power output of Anker’s wall chargers increased, they had a tendency to succumb to gravity and not stay plugged in. Anker’s latest solution to that problem is a redesigned wall charger that positions three USB-C plus a single USB-A port on the underside, improving its center of gravity. Two of the USB-C ports can output up to 140W, but only one at a time, as that’s the charger’s maximum power output. It’s available now for $89.99 and includes a small screen showing how much power each port is drawing.

Sharge Shargeek 300

Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

Sharge debuted another eye-catching power bank with a transparent design and an aluminum case at CES. The Shargeek 300 can deliver up to 300W of power to four devices simultaneously from its 24,000mAh battery and up to 140W to two devices simultaneously, so you can fast-charge a pair of laptops. It’s got a color screen showing the power draw on each port and how much battery life it’s got left. When it’s dead, it can recharge at up to 140W speeds, replenishing its battery from zero to 50 percent in just 20 minutes. Sharge will be launching it through Kickstarter in April for under $300.

Baseus PrimeTrip VR2 Max

Image: Baseus

Your car might feature a couple of USB ports on the dashboard for charging devices, but did you remember to grab a charging cable on your way out the door? With the Baseus PrimeTrip VR2 Max car charger, you don’t have to. It features a pair of retractable USB-C cables over 31 inches in length plus an additional USB-A and USB-C port. It provides a total of up to 240W of power across all four ports and up to 105W through a single port, letting you charge a power-hungry laptop on the road. It’s expected sometime in April 2025 for $44.99.

Anker Power Bank (165W)

Image: Anker

Anker’s new soda can-sized 25,000mAh power bank includes a few welcome conveniences. It can deliver up to 165W of power shared across a USB-C port, a USB-A port, a short 8.6-inch USB-C cable that can be used as a carrying strap, and a 27.2-inch USB-C cable that fully retracts. Maximum output to a single USB-C port is 100W, so you can fast-charge a laptop, and you can monitor how much power each port is drawing on a small screen. It’s available now for $99.99.

Baseus Enercore CJ11

Image: Baseus

Charging cables excel at mysteriously going missing, which is the most compelling reason to consider the Enercore CJ11 wall charger. Available as early as April 2025 for $69.99, it features two retractable USB-C cables, each over 32 inches long, that can’t be swiped. The charger has an additional USB-C port for connecting cables with other connectors and can deliver up to 67W of power with a single device connected or share a maximum of 65W with two or three ports in use.

Baseus EnerGeek MiFi Power Bank

Image: Baseus

In need of a power bank that delivers more than just power? Baseus’ EnerGeek MiFi incorporates a 20,000mAh battery that can deliver up to 67W of power to two USB-C ports, a single USB-A port, and through an integrated USB-C cable that serves as a carrying strap. The power bank also doubles as a mobile hotspot, allowing up to 10 devices to wirelessly connect to the internet over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi at 4G speeds. Baseus hasn’t announced how much mobile data plans will cost, but the power bank is expected to release in April 2025 for $89.99.

While we’re all waiting for official news about the Switch 2, Nintendo has gone ahead and announced a very different kind of console. The company is teasing a collaboration with Lego that will see the original grey brick known as a Game Boy rendered in Lego blocks. There are no details yet, aside from the fact that it’ll be out in October, but it’s likely an official reveal is coming soon.

This isn’t the first collab between the two companies, as there have been a handful of Lego sets based on Nintendo properties, along with a blocky rendition of the NES.

If you’re keeping track, this is part of a lengthy string of non-Switch 2 announcements and launches that Nintendo has made over the last few months. A Nintendo museum opened in Kyoto in October, and after that the company released an alarm clock called Alarmo, started a music streaming service full of classic gaming tunes, and kicked off a test for a mysterious MMO. At this rate, it’s almost pointless to guess what Nintendo will do next.

Ubisoft announced a “strategic update” today, and the changes include a delay for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the upcoming entry in the franchise that takes place in feudal Japan, from February 14th to March 20th.

“As part of the renewed focus on gameplay quality and engaging Day-1 experiences, it has been decided to provide an additional month of development to Assassin’s Creed Shadows,” Ubisoft writes in a press release. “This additional time will allow the team to better incorporate the player feedback gathered over the past three months and help create the best conditions for launch by continuing to engage closely with the increasingly positive Assassin’s Creed community.”

This is the game’s second delay — it was previously scheduled to launch on November 15th before getting pushed.

Ubisoft also says it has “appointed leading advisors to review and pursue various transformational strategic and capitalistic options to extract the best value for stakeholders.” The company says that it will “inform the market in accordance with applicable regulations if and once a transaction materializes.”

Ubisoft has had a bit of a rough go of things as of late. Star Wars Outlaws didn’t sell as well expected and the company also announced that it would be shutting down XDefiant, a live-service shooter.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case against the TikTok divest-or-ban bill on Friday, which will determine the future of the app in the US. 

Read the full story at The Verge.

Lenovo’s mysterious “future of gaming handhelds” event at CES delivered confirmation this week that Microsoft is combining “the best of Xbox and Windows together” for handhelds. Microsoft’s VP of Next Generation, Jason Ronald, spoke to my colleague Sean Hollister after the event to reveal that not only are big changes coming to the Windows handheld experience but also “you’re going to see a lot of stuff as early as this year.”

I’ve been writing for more than a year about how Microsoft needs to overhaul Windows on handhelds and use an Xbox OS UI on top, keeping the complexity of the Windows desktop hidden away. That sounds exactly like what Microsoft is about to do. “I would say it’s bringing the best of Xbox and Windows together, because we have spent the last 20 years building a world-class operating system, but it’s really locked to the console,” says Ronald. “What we’re doing is we’re really focused on how do we bring those experiences for both players and developers to the broader Windows ecosystem.”

Ronald says Microsoft’s “goal is to deliver an Xbox experience that puts your content front and center, and not the Windows desktop that you have today.” For this to happen in...

Read the full story at The Verge.

First announced at CES four years ago, My Arcade’s Super Retro Champ was a chunky handheld that could play classic 16-bit titles using original Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo cartridges. The console didn’t end up launching, but at CES 2025, My Arcade is reviving it with an expected release later this year.

The design and functionality of the Super Retro Champ appears nearly identical to what My Arcade revealed in 2020, but as with many things now, it’s expected to be slightly more expensive. Instead of $110, the handheld is now priced at $149.99.

Image: My Arcade

Unlike the Analogue Pocket, which can play retro titles using cartridges or ROM files, the Super Retro Champ is similar to the ModRetro Chromatic and sticks to carts. It’s got a slot on the top for SNES games (that end up slightly sticking out) and a second on the bottom for Genesis carts. It’s also compatible with cartridges released for the international versions of those classic consoles, including Super Famicom and Mega Drive games.

Image: My Arcade

With a six-inch screen surrounded by generous bezels plus a directional pad and action buttons on either side, the Super Retro Champ doesn’t prioritize portability. You can use it as a handheld with “hours of uninterrupted gameplay” from its rechargeable battery, My Arcade says, but it’s better suited for playing while propped up on a table using its folding stand, a pair of connected controllers, and a power adapter.

If six inches feels too cramped for you and another player, there’s also an HDMI port on the back of the Super Retro Champ for connecting it to a TV. Just don’t expect to enjoy your favorite 16-bit titles in HD or expect them to look as good as they did on the old CRT TV you grew up with.

Though Yuto Suzuki’s manga Sakamoto Days hasn’t been publishing for all that long, an animated adaptation of the series is already making its way to Netflix in just a few days.

Set in a world where it’s not uncommon for people to have superhuman abilities, Sakamoto Days tells the story of Taro Sakamoto (Tomokazu Sugita / Matthew Mercer), a legendary hitman who becomes a humble convenience store owner after falling in love with his wife. While Sakamoto’s wife Aoi (Nao Tōyama / Rosie Okumura) doesn’t hold his past against him, their marriage hinges on her rule that he must never kill again.

For the most part, it’s easy enough for Sakamoto to stick to Aoi’s rule. But things start to get tricky when a bounty is placed on his head that makes him the target of other assassins like telepath Shin Asakura (Dallas Liu) and sharp-shooter Heisuke Mashimo (Ryōta Suzuki / Xolo Maridueña). Netflix’s new trailer for the series teases a bit of how some of Sakamoto’s enemies quickly become allies in his fight to keep his small family safe, and while it doesn’t show all that much of the show’s action, we’ll be able to check it out for ourselves when the show debuts on January 11th.

Smart lock companies have spent 2024 crafting nifty ways for you to gain entry into your home, including iPhone-tapping Home Key options from Aqara, a palm scanner from Philips, keypad and fingerprint smart locks from August, and even a Face ID-style one from Lockly. These all sound pretty futuristic already... but do they feel like magic?

I’m talking magic like how my car’s driver door unlocks without me needing to do or touch anything other than pulling on the handle. I’m talking about smart home locks that see me approaching and take action — so I don’t have to pause and interact with anything when I really just need to run inside to use the bathroom.

Image: Ultraloq

Luckily, at CES 2025, many smart lock makers are poised to launch models that offer touchless passive entry support. That means you won’t need to take extra steps like pulling out an RFID fob from your pocket or smacking your Apple Watch against a pad to unlock your door. (That’s so last year!)

One of the most promising locks from the show is Schlage’s new Sense Pro Smart Deadbolt, which comes equipped with an ultra wideband (UWB) chip that will sense your paired smartphone’s trajectory and motion to know when to trigger an unlock for you.

Schlage isn’t the first to announce UWB in a smart lock; that credit goes to U-tec’s Ultraloq Bolt Mission, which was revealed last year. The Ultraloq was announced with a lack of support for the new Aliro smart access standard backed by Google, Apple, Samsung, and others (meaning no Apple Home hands-free unlocking support).

Now, the Bolt Mission is here at CES with a “Q1 2025” launch timeframe, a $399 price tag, and a promise that Aliro and Apple Home hands-free are coming. There’s also the Lockly Secure Pro, which promises Apple’s touchless feature, costs $379.99, and will arrive in Q4. While it’ll still be a while before a lot of these devices are on the market, the UWB-powered smart lock options are clearly arriving soon.

Image: Schlage

Of course, plenty of companies are still sticking to other unlock technologies instead of UWB. That includes palm scanner locks such as TP-Link’s Tapo PalmKey and TCL’s Smart Lock D1 Pro, both of which claim they use AI to scan for vein patterns in your hand. Meanwhile, others, like the Lockly Styla, are just here to look nice. Heck, if you’d rather have everything but UWB, you can look at SwitchBot’s new Lock Ultra, which literally has 16 different hands-on-something unlocking methods.

Smart lock makers are trying pretty much anything right now, including adding digital peepholes to deadbolts in the new Lockly Vision Prestige and TCL Smart Lock Ultra. But what’s really missing from smart homes today is that new car feeling: where you finally drive off the lot no longer needing to think about age-old ideas like lock, unlock, and push to start. We still have to see these locks in action to see whether they can reliably and securely pull off their hands-free feat. But the opportunity is coming. I hope the smart lock companies have that transformative feeling in mind as they launch products with UWB this year.