<!–> ZDNET’s key takeaways The Coway IconS is available for $615. This air purifier cleans large rooms of up to 1,298 square feet, has a washable pre-filter for easy maintenance, and looks stylish enough to blend in with your home decor. Unfortunately, the IconS is large and expensive. –> Air purifiers are commonly used to […] More
<!–> ZDNET’s key takeaways The Eureka E20 Plus is a midrange robot vacuum and mop available for $400. This is a self-emptying robot vacuum with a bagless system, so you never have to buy replacement bags for it; it features 8,000Pa of suction power and an anti-tangle brush system. While the vacuum proved capable of […] More
Jada Jones/ZDNETDuring this week’s Samsung Unpacked event, Google announced that the new Galaxy S25 devices and the latest Pixel 9 phones will support Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) Audio. This feature isn’t exactly new for Google Pixel or Samsung Galaxy phones, as the Pixel 8 and Galaxy S24 already supported LE Audio, but the added benefit is still worth noting.Also: I may finally switch from Google Pixel to Samsung Galaxy in 2025 – and hardware has little to do with itCompatibility with LE Audio makes the phones function better when paired with the Google Pixel Buds Pro 2, the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro earbuds, and other Auracast-enabled Bluetooth speakers, headphones, earbuds, and hearing aids. Here’s what else you gain from the free upgrade.Broadcast audio from one device to many othersThe LE Audio Bluetooth protocol includes Auracast, a Bluetooth feature that allows users to broadcast audio from one device to many other devices. For example, if you’re watching a YouTube video on your Galaxy S25 smartphone through your Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, a nearby friend can listen to it with their Auracast-enabled headphones.Also: Is Samsung’s new upgrade program for the Galaxy S25 worth it? Here’s the breakdownGalaxy S25 users can also tune into Auracast broadcasts with their Galaxy Buds. In this instance, your smartphone acts as a broadcast assistant, allowing you to connect to a broadcast, such as a silent TV in a sports bar or gym. Connect your Galaxy Buds to your smartphone, and the earbuds act as the broadcast receiver, allowing you to listen to the broadcast privately. More
Kerry Wan/ZDNETSimplifying the smart home is no easy task, yet we smart home users are always striving to do it. At Samsung Unpacked 2025, the company unveiled new Home AI features for its SmartThings platform designed to simplify daily life. This is part of Samsung’s initiative towards a more personalized, knowledge-based AI experience that can learn from your habits and apply this knowledge across multiple apps. Also: Everything announced at Samsung Unpacked 2025: Galaxy S25 Ultra, Gemini AI, moreThe new Home AI features will detect when someone is working out or sleeping, for example, to suggest different routines for the activity. So, if you always exercise with loud music and work in complete silence, it can suggest routines to automatically switch off the music while working at your desk. More
With all the new Windows laptops released over the course of the past year, we’ve seen more than a handful of impressive machines. But it all comes down to which ones deliver an exceptional experience. That could mean delivering on solid performance, offering a unique feature, or just being a fantastic value relative to the competition. Advances in processor technology have blown up over the last 12 months, and with the release of the ever-growing Copilot+ lineup, Windows machines are thinner, sleeker, and run cooler than ever before. Not to mention the fantastic battery life on devices like the Surface Laptop and HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14. Also: The best lightweight laptops of 2025: Expert testedOur experts have tested dozens of the best laptops this year, and broken down our favorites by aligning them to common use cases that we think will be helpful to most folks. Here are our top Windows laptops of 2024. What is the best Windows laptop right now?We’ve gone hands-on with all of the best Windows laptops on this list, including models from Lenovo, Asus, Dell, Samsung, Microsoft, and more. Currently, our pick for the best overall Windows laptop is the Dell XPS 16 More
<!–> ZDNET’s key takeaways The Phelinta three-in-one charger is available now on Amazon for $37 with a 13% off coupon. It charges all of your Pixel devices in one convenient place. It isn’t the fastest charger on the planet, but it does exactly what it needs to. –> To this point, I was charging my […] More
Max Buondonno/ZDNETGoogle has launched the first Android 16 beta to developers and early adopters, providing insight into what the OS will bring later this year. A post on the official Android Developers Blog reveals multiple quality-of-life changes, such as ending screen orientation and resizability restrictions for apps “on large screens.”Also: I may finally switch from Google Pixel to Samsung Galaxy in 2025 – and hardware has little to do with itMany mobile apps on the Android ecosystem are developed primarily for traditional smartphones and not for foldable devices like the OnePlus Open. Unoptimized apps will keep their orientation on a foldable, which has the side effect of leaving blank spaces around the sides. This change allows apps to scale appropriately to run on “any window size [or] aspect ratio.”Next, a “new class of notifications” called Live Updates is being added to Android 16. This lets users monitor and quickly access important ongoing activities as they occur — similar to how Live Activities work on the lock screen of iPhones. For example, Uber Eats could utilize this to provide more detailed progress tracking. Custom icons for the start, specific segments, and the end of a food delivery can be added to the app. More
bymuratdeniz/Getty Images One of the big trends in artificial intelligence in the past year has been the employment of various tricks during inference — the act of making predictions — to dramatically improve the accuracy of those predictions. For example, chain-of-thought — having a large language model (LLM) spell out the logic of an answer […] More
