Nothing couldn’t wait to show off the Phone 4A

After teasing the upcoming launch of its midrange Phone 4A last week, Nothing has now revealed what the rear of the device looks like. An official render of the Phone 4A shared on X shows off the brand's familiar transparent-industrial stylings, alongside a new "Glyph Bar" lighting feature located to the right of the triple […]

Uber launches robotaxi support project to aid AV partners

Uber is moving aggressively into robotaxis, striking deals with new partners and promising big investments to support future fleets - basically everything it can do except design and build the vehicles itself. (It tried that once, unsuccessfully.) Now, the ridehail giant is launching a new initiative to support its third-party robotaxi partners called Uber Autonomous […]

Taara Beam provides 25Gbps connectivity over invisible beams of light

Light-based internet provider Taara, which spun out of Alphabet's "moonshot" incubator last year, just launched Taara Beam to provide 25Gbps connectivity within cities over invisible beams of light - line of sight permitting. Unlike last year's Taara Lightbridge, which connects communities separated by water and mountains at distances up to 20km (over 12 miles), the […]

How many AIs does it take to read a PDF?

Last November, the House Oversight Committee had just released 20,000 pages of documents from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein, and Luke Igel and some friends were clicking around, trying to follow the threads of conversation through garbled email threads and a PDF viewer that was, frankly, "gross." In the coming months, the Department of Justice […]

Samsung is adding Perplexity to Galaxy AI

In addition to summoning Bixby or Gemini, Galaxy S26 users will be able to call on Perplexity by saying "hey, Plex." The integration of Perplexity into Galaxy AI is just one element of the company's embrace of a "multi-agent ecosystem." Often, people will use different AI agents for different tasks, depending on where their strengths […]

You need to listen to Laurie Spiegel’s masterpiece of early ambient music

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Laurie Spiegel for the site. As preparation for the interview, I spent a lot of time over the last couple of weeks revisiting Spiegel's records, most notably The Expanding Universe, her 1980 masterpiece that blends synth experimentalism with early examples of what would eventually be called ambient music, […]

Trump says Netflix will ‘pay the consequences’ if it doesn’t fire Susan Rice

Donald Trump threatened that there would be "consequences" for Netflix if it didn't fire board member Susan Rice. Rice served in both the Obama and Biden administrations, and recently appeared on Preet Bharara's podcast, where she said corporations that "take a knee to Trump" are going to be "caught with more than their pants down. […]

This magazine plays Tetris — here’s how

Tetris has been immortalized in a playable McDonald's plastic chicken nugget, a playable fake 7-Eleven Slurpee cup, and a playable wristwatch. But the most intriguing way to play Tetris yet is encased in paper. Last year the Tetris Company partnered with Red Bull for a gaming tournament that culminated in the 150-meter-tall Dubai Frame landmark […]

America desperately needs new privacy laws

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the dire state of tech regulation, follow Adi Robertson. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started In 1973, long before the modern digital era, […]

Vibe camera shootout: Camp Snap Pro vs. Flashback One35 V2

There's been a surge of interest over the last few years in inexpensive digital cameras. Younger folks are snapping up old point-and-shoots because they view the aesthetic as more authentic and more appealing than smartphone images. Companies are even rereleasing old tech at new prices. And there are cameras like the original Camp Snap: a […]