For a long time, Chromebooks have been derided as not being “real computers.” The truth, which continues to grow increasingly clear, is that most people don’t need anything with capabilities beyond what a Chromebook offers. Recent updates that give you the ability to run Android apps make this reality even more crisp. This week, the hosts talk about the Pixelbook, Chromebooks in general, iPads, MacBooks, Surface devices, and boring old Windows laptops. But real talk, just get a Chromebook—especially if...
Like the Wii a decade ago, the Nintendo Switch is a bona fide hit this year. It’s been a real challenge to find the portable console anywhere since it’s debut in March, but as the holiday season approaches, there are finally a few stores with enough Switch stock to go ’round. Now is a great time to purchase, too. Super Mario Odyssey has finally arrived. It’s the most anticipated Mario game in ages, wowing Wired’s own Julie Muncy, who says...
While British rappers have come to the forefront thanks to Drake, Simz is bringing her music Stateside in a way that’s unmistakably...
Like with jetpacks and flying cars, the Power Loader from Aliens is a robot we’ve been promised for a long time. That’d be the exoskeleton that Sigourney Weaver donned to beat the tar out of the movie’s eponymous alien Queen, of course. Jetpacks are kinda here, flying cars … almost, and now a real-life Power Loader has finally arrived, and it’s orders of magnitude more impressive than the suit of fiction. Behold the Guardian GT from Sarcos Robotics, which in...
Schuberth C4 helmet. STEPHANIE GONOT / STYLING BY AMY TAYLOR Schuberth C4 helmet. STEPHANIE GONOT / STYLING BY AMY TAYLOR When choosing a case for your cranium, you want something that’s smarter than you are. Schuberth’s sleek C4 motorcycle helmet is designed by Germans, so of course it’s modular; the chin shield flips up so you can pop in a snack, yell at a car, or breathe some fresh highway air. It also has a built-in microphone and speakers, which...
The Amazon Fire 7 is a tablet you can buy for $50. Think on that for a minute—for one Ulysses S. Grant, you can get a whiff of what it’s like to own a tablet. Unfortunately, once you dig in, you’ll find the Fire 7 is more of a toy than the real deal. Like its siblings, the 8-inch Fire HD 8 and 10-inch Fire HD 10, the Fire 7 is an almost suspiciously affordable device meant to give you...
Stini Rohrs was speeding down Germany’s iconic autobahn last year until, all of a sudden, she wasn’t: an accident brought traffic to a three-hour standstill. At first, she and her fellow drivers—truckers, college kids, paramedics—sat in their vehicles. But soon they emerged and began chatting, playing soccer, and climbing up a hill beside the road for better views of the crash. It was a beautiful, unexpected glimpse of the diverse people working and traveling along the road network. “The autobahn...
My Google Assistant is many things, but it’s mostly a meteorologist. I work 40 miles from my apartment, and the Bay Area’s many microclimates mean I’ll experience several weathers between my door and my desk. The questions come in the same order every morning: Hey Google, what’s the weather in San Jose? Hey Google, what about in San Francisco? Hey Google, what about tonight? The new Google Home Mini suits this use perfectly. Google’s latest smart speaker emphasizes smart over...
The market for devices like the Amazon Echo and Google Home is so new that nobody really knows anything, except that smart speakers are fun as hell and they’re probably important to the connected future of everything. Somehow. We’re firmly in the spaghetti-throwing phase of the technology, as companies experiment in public to find out what works. Barely a week after Amazon unveiled a half-dozen new Echo products, Google has a new smart speaker of its own. It’s called the...
Tom Petty’s four-decades-long run as America’s premier power-pop troubadour had plenty of unexpected phases: There was his late-’70s, working-class-hero years, in which he sparred with his record label, arguing that his music should be priced cheaper; his on-again, off-again stint as the youngest, most starry-eyed Wilbury; and his smash-hit solo-star era, thanks to Full Moon Fever, an album that unfussily fused ’60s guitar-pop sparkle, ’70s bad-boy bonhomie, and late-’80s weariness (and if you listen closely...
