Gear Live: The Latest Tech, Gadgets, AI, and Gaming News
The Foldable iPhone is Here: Our First Impressions of the iPhone Duo
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Features, Videos,
Apple has finally made an iPhone that folds. I just spent a lot of time getting hands-on with the iPhone Duo at the Apple launch, and the excitement start right when you open it up. It introduces a completely new way to use iOS.
Let's dive into what this $1,999 device actually does!
Click to continue reading The Foldable iPhone is Here: Our First Impressions of the iPhone Duo
The iPhone 18 Pro’s Secret Weapon: How a Variable Aperture Camera Will Change Your Photos
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Features, Product Reviews,
Apple just changed how the iPhone Pro thinks. On the surface, the iPhone 18 Pro might look like a standard, iterative update. But underneath the familiar exterior lies a completely rebuilt architecture. We are talking about a new chip, a massive cooling upgrade, and a camera system that finally does something no other iPhone has ever done. Let's dig into what makes this device a quiet powerhouse.
A familiar design with a few smart tweaks
The body uses a high-heat force aluminum unibody, keeping it lightweight but incredibly tough. Apple introduced four colors this year: Black, Silver, Glacier, and Burgundy. The Burgundy finish is deep, sophisticated, and catches the light beautifully without screaming for attention.
Durability is highly impressive. Both the front and back feature Ceramic Shield 2. You can comfortably run this display without a screen protector and not see a single scratch after heavy daily use.
Up top, the Dynamic Island is about 25% smaller but now shows up to three live activities at once. Apple achieved this by hiding the FaceID IR camera directly behind the display pixels, giving you more screen real estate without losing functionality.
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M5 Ultra Mac Studio Review: Huge Local AI Performance (for a Price!)
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop, Product Reviews, Artificial Intelligence,
The M5 Ultra Mac Studio is the fastest computer Apple has ever sold, and after a couple of weeks with one on my desk, I can tell you immediately that it's shockingly good.
Apple sent me a near-top configuration: 36-core CPU, 80-core GPU, 256GB of unified memory, and an 8TB SSD. That's more computer than I've ever had in a box this size, and the numbers land about where Apple said they would back in August: 30% to 45% more CPU than the M3 Ultra depending on the benchmark, anywhere from 20% to 60% on the GPU depending on the test, and storage that runs two to three times as fast. The bigger change is who this machine is for. It used to be the video editor's Mac. Now it's the Mac for anyone who wants to run a 150GB language model on their desk without paying anyone a monthly fee, and Apple has priced it for exactly that person.
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Bloomberg: Apple Postponed Its Camera Pendant, and Is Prototyping a Screenless Fitness Band
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Wearables, Rumors,
An always-on camera hanging from your neck is a lot to ask of a person. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that Apple has landed in roughly the same place, at least for now. Gurman says the company has postponed its AI pendant, the small camera-and-microphone wearable that was meant to feed Siri a live look at whatever is in front of you.
Gurman has described it as something you could hang around your neck, clip to your clothes, or wear on your body, with the camera doing the job your phone camera does now when you point it at a menu and ask what to order. Prototype descriptions in the reporting put it near the size of an AirTag, a thin disc of aluminum and glass with a button on the side. Apple has never announced it, never named it, and has said nothing about any of this.
Nikon’s $1,400 Z5IIC Is a Full-Frame Camera You Can’t Put to Your Eye
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Cameras,
Take the electronic viewfinder off a full-frame camera and Nikon will sell it to you for about $300 less. That is the Z5IIC, announced today, a Z5 II with the eyepiece deleted and a $1,399.95 price on the body. Whether that reads as a bargain or a dealbreaker depends almost entirely on what you shoot.
If your footage ends up on YouTube, you already know your answer. Nobody presses a mirrorless camera to their face to film a talking head. The flip-out screen is the whole workflow, and the EVF was a lump on top that you paid for and carried around anyway. If you shoot stills outdoors, the answer runs the other way. No rear LCD beats an eyecup at two in the afternoon in July, and no brightness setting fixes the part where your arms are stuck out in front of you instead of braced against your face.
Click to continue reading Nikon’s $1,400 Z5IIC Is a Full-Frame Camera You Can’t Put to Your Eye
Oracle Says Its New Mexico Stargate Site Is On Schedule. It Filed to Delay the Rent Anyway.
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Misc. Tech, Artificial Intelligence,
Oracle says Project Jupiter, its 2.45-gigawatt AI data center in southern New Mexico, remains on schedule. It has also sent its landlord a force majeure notice, which is the paperwork you file when you think you might not be able to hold up your end.
The notice went to Stack Infrastructure, a Blue Owl Capital unit developing the campus in Doña Ana County. Oracle is the tenant, and per Bloomberg's reporting it cannot walk away from the lease and is not trying to. What the notice does is preserve an argument. If the site misses its 2028 target because the power did not show up, Oracle wants the right to push back when the rent clock starts.
Google’s Pixel Watch Can Now Estimate Your Blood Pressure
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Wearables, Google, Software,
Google's Health Guardian tools start rolling out to the Google Health app this week, which means your Pixel Watch is about to start estimating your blood pressure. It reads your pulse and your motion all month, with no cuff and no calibration, and then tells you whether your numbers have been drifting higher. The first reports land in early October.
That word "estimating" is carrying a lot of weight. Blood pressure trends, insulin resistance trends and sleep breathing quality are all free on the Pixel Watch 3, 4 and 5. Google's own fine print calls all three general wellness features, says they cannot diagnose anything, and says they are not a replacement for the cuff in your bathroom drawer.
Click to continue reading Google’s Pixel Watch Can Now Estimate Your Blood Pressure
The OLED iPad mini Is Reportedly Close. Not Every Rumor About It Is Solid.
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Handhelds, Rumors,
The iPad mini has the smallest and most stubborn fan base Apple has. It is the tablet people read on in bed, wedge into a jacket pocket, and keep for five or six years because nothing else is quite that size. It also goes the longest between updates, which means every mini rumor gets picked over harder than it deserves.
This round is the biggest in years. Reporting from Bloomberg, plus a scatter of supply chain leaks, points to a new iPad mini as early as October with an OLED screen, a much faster chip, and a sealed body that survives a splash. Apple has announced nothing, and these claims are nowhere near equally solid, so here they are sorted by how much weight the sourcing carries.
Click to continue reading The OLED iPad mini Is Reportedly Close. Not Every Rumor About It Is Solid.
Nissan’s Pixo Is a 161-Mile Electric City Car. It Is Not Coming to the US.
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Transportation,
Nissan revived the Pixo name on September 23, and you cannot buy one. The Pixo is a European car. It is built in Slovenia, it is sold in Europe, and it is not scheduled for the United States at all.
What Europe gets is a small electric hatchback with a 27.5 kWh lithium iron phosphate battery and 259 km of WLTP range, which is 161 miles. Nissan says customer deliveries begin in early 2027. It has not said what the car costs. Market pricing arrives from December 2026 onward, and the under-20,000-euro figure being quoted today (roughly $23,000 before incentives) is an expectation, not a number Nissan has announced.
Click to continue reading Nissan’s Pixo Is a 161-Mile Electric City Car. It Is Not Coming to the US.
Samsung Pushed a Test Build to Korean Fridges Two Days Before Chuseok
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Smart Home, Misc. Tech,
Your refrigerator does not have a reboot ritual. You don't sit down with a coffee and watch a progress bar crawl across the door panel. It runs for a decade, and the only time you think about it is when the ice maker jams. On the afternoon of September 22, a batch of Samsung owners in South Korea found out that deal had quietly changed.
Samsung has confirmed that a test version of a refrigerator software update went out through SmartThings by mistake instead of the finished release. Units froze partway through. The panel sat on an update message and then went dark. Interior lights stayed off, the door's auto-open feature stopped responding, the SmartThings app listed the fridge as offline, and unplugging it and plugging it back in did nothing. What it stopped doing, above all, was refrigerate.
Click to continue reading Samsung Pushed a Test Build to Korean Fridges Two Days Before Chuseok