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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
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...
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;...
On a cool September evening, Judy Johanson curled up on her living room sofa with her iPad, carefully examining mouse brains. Her husband, Steve, slept just a few feet away. It was granular work, especially for a woman who for 24 years ran a daycare center. Judy...
There are two schools of thought regarding wireless headphones. There’s the AirPods camp, which believes true wireless is the only wireless, and the best way to listen to music is with two individual buds shoved into your ear canals. To the other crew, wires...
Apple is hosting a big iPhone launch event in Cupertino on September 12. David, Arielle, and Michael open up their iPhones and ask Siri to predict what’s coming on Tuesday. All the hosts have so far are rumors, leaks, and guesses, but that’s more than...
Garmin’s Fenix line has long been among the best—if not the best—multisport watches money can buy. These capable wrist-puters add performance tracking and GPS-based mapping to just about every outdoor activity. Critics have been vocal about the...
Houston’s music, like the city itself, is a sprawl of possibility and community—and a deluge didn’t change...
Every smart speaker has its advantages. With Amazon Echo, you get access to tens of thousands of “skills,” the mini-apps that start a game of Jeopardy or help you mix a cocktail. With Google Home, you have the full power of Google search at your beck and...
Whenever it’s time to redesign a classic, automakers, especially those in the luxury business, must tackle a tricky problem. They know buyers will want the latest tech, but they want it in a package that stays true to the heritage into which they’re buying....
You have to credit Samsung for its chutzpah. The company’s tried every way it can think of to make its smartwatches happen, refining its line of Gear products year after year. Still, not even the latest Gear S3—one of the best smartwatches on the...
I have a love-hate relationship with wireless headphones. The idea is incredibly appealing, but the added complication of charging multiplied by the notoriously finicky Bluetooth tech still has me clinging to my rats’ nest of cords like a fogie who won’t...
The Ionic can track your heart rate, play music, make mobile payments, and display push notifications. Just don’t call it a wrist...
Every year, for the past 26 years, something truly remarkable happens: an entire city appears out of the desert. I’m speaking, of course, of Black Rock City, in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, erected for the quasi-ritualistic celebration of art, radical...
The US border with Mexico stretches 2,000 miles from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. It crosses four states and some of the most inhospitable terrain imaginable. Hundreds of millions of people cross it each year, making it the busiest border in the world. Yet...