Tech

For much of the last several years, when you thought of desktop PCs, you generally thought of conformist grey boxes. Some were thinner than others, some more powerful, some came in gaudy colors, but all felt basically the same. With the advent of inventive devices like of Microsoft’s Surface Studio, though, that perception has rightly …

Facebook has created a new way to videochat with your Facebook friends. It’s not an app, nor is it some awkward virtual-reality playpen. It’s a device called Portal, and it’s meant to sit in your living room and serve as a two-way conduit for conversations with faraway friends and family. It has a 12-megapixel camera …

Don’t get me wrong: I love me some robot vacuums but no matter which you pick, regular maintenance and babysitting is necessary. Even if a cleaning run goes off without a hitch and the botvac doesn’t get stuck on a cord or trapped behind a door, you still have to clean carpet brushes and empty …

Whether you observe Columbus Day or Indigenous People’s Day, this is a weekend with a few extra tech and gaming sales. We’ve highlighted some discounts for tech we really like. We’ve tested many of these items, and the rest look like they’re well worth your hard-earned money. New this Week New Fire TV Stick 4K …

Signing on to test the new Specialized Turbo Levo mountain bike is a little like making a deal with the devil—especially if you live in a town, like I do (Duluth, Minnesota), where e-bikes aren’t allowed on the 93 miles of IMBA gold-medal-level, purpose-built singletrack. There are many purists out there who firmly believe that …

An alert from the US president went out to millions of cell phones Wednesday as a part of a test of FEMA’s Wireless Emergency Alert system. Some people didn’t want to get the message, but they got it anyway. Others who had expected to get the alert didn’t get it at all. At least four …

In high school, my cross-country coach once counseled me to open my clenched fists. Stay relaxed, he said. The energy that you use to clench your fists is energy that you need for running. To this day, every time a shirt rides up or a shoe comes untied, I shout, “Noooo! I need this energy …

If it seems like all of the news has been centered around this week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing and you’re wondering what tech news you might have missed, then this is the podcast episode for you. On this week’s Gadget Lab we discuss the abrupt departure of Instagram’s co-founders from Facebook; Twitter’s ban on dehumanizing …

It turns out they weren’t kidding when they said the cloud was going to be everywhere. Its latest home is the Das Keyboard 5Q, self-proclaimed as the first computer keyboard that is cloud-enabled. Some logical next questions are bound to follow. Namely, what is a cloud-enabled keyboard, and why would you want such a thing? …

The vast majority of the time, you have to buy your specialized cargo e-bike from a preferred retailer who will assemble it for you. However, Seattle’s Rad Power Bikes eliminates the middleman and saves you some time, money, and effort by delivering the bike straight to your door (you can also opt for their mobile …