Technology

A collision in space was narrowly avoided last week when a newly deployed Chinese satellite came within a few hundred meters of one of the roughly 9,000 Starlink satellites currently operating in low Earth orbit. SpaceX is laying the blame on the satellite operator for not sharing location data. "When satellite operators do not share […]

iRobot, the owner of the Roomba robot vacuum, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, stating that it will be acquired by its contract manufacturer, Picea Robotics. The Chinese-based company assumed iRobot's $190 million loan earlier this month and, under the terms of iRobot's restructuring, will waive that debt, along with the $161.5 million iRobot owes […]

My introduction to Sudan Archives was the song "Nont for Sale" from her first EP Sink in 2018. I've been a die-hard fan ever since. With each album, she finds new ways to sculpt the sound of her violin, contorting it in defiance of expectations. Athena found her in conversation with it, leaving its timbre […]

Grok's track record is spotty at best. But even by the very low standards of xAI, its failure in the aftermath of the tragic mass shooting at Bondi Beach in Australia is shocking. The AI chatbot has repeatedly misidentified 43-year-old Ahmed al Ahmed, the man who heroically disarmed one of the shooters, and claimed the […]

By 2010, the iPhone era was in full swing. Smartphones were still a new and unfinished idea - the iPhone had only just gotten copy and paste! - but it was clear that these big slabs of glass were going to change the way we did pretty much everything. Apple was also already on an […]

Here's a thought: what if the next-generation Siri is awesome? Not just awesome for setting timers and dictating text messages (though that would be nice), but so awesome and fun to talk to that people actually start falling in love with their iPhones. We may not be prepared for what happens next. On this episode […]

It's a small sample size, likely driven by Black Friday discounts and temporary virality, but the Nex Playground has gone from little-known console curiosity to best-seller. It's now on track to quadruple its sales from last year. According to research firm Circana, the Playground was the second best-selling console in the US for the week […]

Native Instruments and Ableton have had incredible success with their custom MIDI controllers that integrate with their DAWs (digital audio workstations), Maschine and Live, respectively. Native Instruments' Maschine (yes, it's the name of the hardware and the software) and Ableton's Push are pretty much the gold standard for integration between music-making software and hardware. Serato […]

As I'm sitting in my office writing this review, delicious, cheesy, garlicky scents are wafting up the stairs. I can hear whizzing and whirring, and the occasional clunk, as a robot chef in my kitchen is making macaroni and cheese. Its app tells me there are three minutes left in the process, and based on […]

The Nex Playground is apparently one of the hottest consoles this holiday season thanks to its kid-friendly games and fun, motion-controlled gameplay. And now through December 14th, the cube-shaped console is on sale for its Black Friday low of around $199 ($50 off) at Amazon. There are some other great deals still available you might […]

As a writer, I take the tools of my trade relatively seriously. I’m not crazy enough to drop $3,600 on a keyboard, but I also find typing on a MacBook for extended periods of time deeply unsatisfying — and distracting. So this spring, I started looking into distraction-free writing setups, which included an e-reader / […]

Sektori is an old-school twin-stick shooter. Created by a former developer at Returnal studio Housemarque, it puts you in the role of a little ship that blasts through swarms of enemies, and you have to weave through them to get upgrades to help you survive. Often, my runs end after less than a couple minutes, […]