Author: Brett Venter

Eyeglasses have been around for centuries, dating back at least to the 13th century and possibly even the 2nd century. IXI Eyewear, a Finnish company, reckons it has found a way to do them better. Smart glasses that are just… well, glasses? What a novel thought. When you hear the term ‘smart glasses’, the first thing that comes to mind is some technological innovation involving AI, information flow, or just turn-by-turn directions hovering in front of your eyes. If you are one of the millions who wear eyeglasses for vision correction, these innovations fall a little flat. Because… well, it’s…

Lego is no stranger to oddball bricks, having previously made light-up and even augmented reality versions. The big new thing is Smart Play, a more intelligent series of sets that use new Smart Bricks, Smart Tags, and Smart Minifigs (the proper noun status was Lego’s idea) to enable more than just brick-building. Whether the new range, announced at this year’s CES conference in Las Vegas, will have better shelf-life than the company’s recent Hidden Side range remains to be seen, but at least the Danish company is trying. That’s the Smart Play The launch of Smart Play does mean that,…

Everyone wants a shiny new EV, but electric motorcycles get far less attention. Verge Motorcycles’ upgraded TS Pro EV bike could change all that. The fast-charging speeds of its new solid-state batteries are noteworthy, even if the promised 600km range doesn’t quite pan out as advertised. The basic stats for the EV motorcycle are only slightly terrifying. All versions of the two-wheeled death machine are capped at a top speed of 200km/h, but most will reach half that speed in just 3.5 seconds. We reckon Verge could do it faster, but riding a bike kinda requires that drivers can stay…

Amazon’s Alexa+ (or Plus, depending on your numerical literacy) is a bold move for any AI company in the 21st century — it’s AI that you have to pay for. But if you do happen to pay for the service, you’ll soon be able to access it via your web browser. Alexa+ the internet According to Amazon, its paying Early Access customers “want Alexa wherever they are,” resulting in a new browser-based version of the service. It’s supposed to permit the company’s AI to “help in every aspect of [a customer’s] day, and to truly serve as a personal assistant.”…

Everybody’s trying to create hardware that convincingly uses AI. Subtle’s new Voicebuds reckon they’ve cracked the formula (an opinion the Stream Ring shares about itself). There’s little chance it’ll do worse than the ill-fated (and mostly non-functional) Rabbit R1, at least. Subtle pitches its Voicebuds, as the name suggests, as a way to use voice commands in places and settings that don’t usually support it. The company feels that voice inputs struggle because it’s “too public in shared spaces and too unreliable in noisy ones.” The Voicebuds are supposed to help. Rather, Subtle How? By “providing dictation, calls, voice notes,…

If you thought Samsung’s recent AI drive for its range of products was extreme in 2025, you’re in for a slight shock. The company has confirmed that it intends to double the number of AI-supporting devices it releases in 2026, compared to the 400 million AI gadgets launched in 2025. For those who struggle with basic math (no, not you), that’s 800 million devices heading to market in 2026 that will feature Google’s Gemini AI. Why Samsung isn’t fleshing out Bixby isn’t immediately explained (hint: it’s either a) Google’s money is too attractive or b) Bixby is a bit crap…

The Consumer Electronics Show always has its share of wild and wacky tech, but we weren’t expecting Pixar’s Wall-E to turn up. Nor were we expecting LG to launch a robot that folds laundry for you, but that’s something the world really needs to prevent the Couch of Shame™. You know the one. A Chinese company called Zeroth actually unveiled a slate of robots — one of which looks very much like the cute little animated die-hard, Wall-E. But, due to international copyright law, it can’t be sold outside of China. Instead, Western customers will have to make do with…

One of the better storefronts for PC games, and one built on DRM-free older titles, GoG.com is no longer owned by CD Project RED. The good news is that Good Old Games hasn’t gone far. If anything, it’s reverted to one of its original owners. The platform said in a release that one of CD Projekt’s founders, Michał Kiciński, has “acquired 100% of the shares in GOG, formerly part of the CD PROJEKT Group.” Given the current state of the gaming industry, this move to make the platform more like Valve’s Steam could be a very good thing. GG GoG…

Robot vacuums, drones, electric hypercars; they’re all just coils of wire and magnets, right? Dreame certainly seems to think so, having previously teased its “Bugatti-level” EV ambitions. Those ambitions are set to show up at this year’s CES conference. The smart home company’s first electric car was teased (again) via the Chinese social media network Weibo, where the company outlined few details of the vehicle but pointed out that it would use Dreame’s vacuum cleaner smarts to achieve (at least some) of its performance. Speedy Dreame Dreame’s still-unnamed EV is thought to feature more than 1,000HP of performance and a…

Honor is replacing its previous gaming handset lineup, the Honor GT series, with the Honor Win. It’s more than just a name-change, however. Honor is throwing as much as much as it can at the phone’s hardware, just to keep you interested. And if you’re a gamer, then battery life is the second most important concern, right behind raw power. The Honor Win is taking that into account with a massive 10,000mAh battery that — if you’re using the phone as intended — should give you normal smartphone battery performance. Chalk up another Honor Win That’s even with the Snapdragon…