What's New

For all the heavy-lifting that goes into making every Star Wars movie—the casting, the elaborate sets, the VFX, the massive international marketing campaigns—it’s amazing any of them get completed. Yet no Star Wars production to date has seemed as fraught as that of Solo: A Star Wars Story. The second standalone movie after Rogue One, the Han Solo prequel/origin story lost its initial directors Ph...

Back in the bygone era before videogames, “playing” meant screwing around with physical toys—action figures, dolls, bugs, whatever. In my house it mean turning wrapping paper tubes into swords and hitting your father with them. (Sorry, Dad.) When gaming consoles came along, though, play for many kids, myself included, got a lot more sedentary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices...

Before we delve into the darkness of the world this week, let's consider these two tweets from the past seven days that really tell any outside viewer exactly what they need to know about the platform that is Twitter (in addition to the stuff about Nazis and harassment, of course). Oh, social media! So many fascinating characters... But that’s not what you came here for. This is what you came here...

The last time and place you want to hear someone compliment your ski apparel is when you are in the bathroom, fiddling with the butt zip. As I started to examine the zippers in my general crotchal area, I heard someone exclaim, “Sweet onesie!” I looked around and saw another woman giving me a thumbs up. I should’ve gone into a stall first. But such is the attention-grabbing nature of Airblaster. L...

I must confess. I don’t yet own a 4K TV. I’ve stared at them for countless hours in the office and at trade shows, but when it comes time to spend my own money, I haven’t pulled the trigger. And why should I? I’m still sitting cozy with a wonderful 2011 60-inch Panasonic Viera plasma HDTV that works beautifully and has some of the best picture quality possible for its resolution. Throughout the ye...

We're a month into the new year, so why are you still using that busted-up old laptop or game console? Valentine's Day is around the corner so it's a perfect time to treat yourself or someone you love to some new tech. Thanks to our friends at TechBargains, we have a handful of solid deals on computers, Xbox Ones, and even the iPad Pro. When we reviewed the Xbox One X last year, we were impressed...

Come with me, back to a simpler time. It's 2015, and Apple's MacBook Pros are on the top of the world. The 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro was one of the best notebooks anyone could ask for. It had everything–USB-A ports, Thunderbolt 2, an SD card slot. Everything was great, until—smash cut to late 2016, when Apple did a major redesign of the entire Pro lineup. Suddenly, USB-C and Thunderbolt were the...

Full disclosure: Unbeknownst to my editors, I wore a Timex Ironman watch for over a decade. My Timex did everything I needed a watch to do. I wore it traveling, snowboarding, swimming, running, snorkeling and surfing. I could set an alarm, check my pace, and show up when I said I would. It also lit up, so when unexpected noises woke me while camping, I could huddle in my sleeping bag, check the ti...

Some days are crushingly cold and sloppy. Bring the right equipment and you won’t suffer. When the snow is ripping sideways, you’ll need a sturdy shield to block the freeze. Constructed from a composite material with a waterproof exterior and a wicking inner fabric, Columbia’s jacket can keep you going long after your friends have bailed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/...

January has so far proven to be one of the busiest months for the transportation industry. CES in early January was flooded with car news, including the debut of a new $45,000 electric SUV by a Chinese Tesla competitor called Byton. Then, just days after CES wrapped, we had the Detroit auto show, where America’s largest car-makers trot out their designs for the next year. WIRED transportation edit...

There’s nothing like skiing under dazzling blue skies. Don’t ruin it by dressing for a blizzard. 1. Trew Men’s Wander Jacket A simple wind-blocking shell is all you need in epic weather. The trim cut of this one means it doesn’t feel like you are wearing a tent, and the lightweight construction makes it easy to pack or stuff in a backpack. If wind and clouds suddenly appear, no prob: You’re still...

Whether on Android or iOS, you likely already use Google Maps for navigation. You use Gmail for email. You use YouTube to watch videos. And you’re right to do so. You’d be even more right to ditch whatever junk keyboard your smartphone shipped with for Gboard, another Google staple that works like a dream. Lots of Android devices—including the Pixel line of premium phones—already use Gboard by def...

Robots can walk, talk, run a hotel … and are entirely stumped by a doorknob. Or a mailbox. Or a dirty bathtub—zzzzt, dead. Sure, the SpotMini, a doglike domestic helper from Boston Dynamics, can climb stairs, but it struggles to reliably hand over a can of soda. That’s why some roboticists think the field needs to flip its perspective. “There are two approaches to building robots,” says Maya Cakma...

My sister Gina is a fantastic cook who does not suffer crappy cookware gladly. Her pans are battle-tested All Clads that have been roughed up over the years, but they take the abuse she dishes out with a shrug. Once, though, I noticed damage to a T-Fal pan of hers that wasn't up to the task; the bottom of the pan had a bit of a dome shape to it, meaning hot oil within the pan pooled around the out...

The Super Bowl is upon us, and this year we get to watch The New England Patriots face off against the Philadelphia Eagles. If that sounds familiar, it’s because they both faced off in the 2005 Super Bowl. The Patriots won then, but that doesn’t mean they’ll win again. With fans so dedicated that they’ll climb up Crisco’d light poles to celebrate, Philly may just have the spirit to overcome. The b...

The worst part of breast pumping? The logistics. Ask any working, breastfeeding mom and she'll describe the hassle of finding a private room, disrobing, and hooking up to a machine to pump every three to four hours. And then, after she's sat there for 20 minutes, she still needs to store the milk, wash everything, and put it all away. As an ER doctor and mom of preemie twins, Stella Dao had to pum...

Let’s face it. Phones cost too much money. Yes, the $1,000 iPhone X is awesome, but for those who don’t need to keep a status symbol in their pocket, $350 feels much more reasonable, and that’s what the HTC U11 Life offers. You can buy two or three of these for the price of a top-tier Android phone, like the Pixel 2, and that’s the point. It’s an unabashed value version of HTC’s fancier U11. Learn...

Ursula Le Guin imagined the future for a living, but her most prescient statement may have come in a speech. "I think hard times are coming," the writer said at the National Book Awards in November 2014, "when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and...

You can get a drone in a wide range of sizes. Some of them fit in your palm (like the Syma X20) while others are quite large. But have you noticed anything about the flying time? Many of the super small drones have flight times that are less than five minutes. The larger drones (like the DJI Phantom 4) have a maximum flight time of closer to a half hour. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit pod...

When Randal Miles woke up from a nap during his flight from Paris to Los Angeles last week, he opened the interactive map on his seat-back screen to see how much longer he'd be in the air. But the number that caught his eye was the jet's speed. The Norwegian jet was flying at 770 mph—about 200 mph faster than its standard cruising velocity. “I thought, ‘Damn, this thing is hauling ass,’” Miles say...

Nintendo has sold a lot of Switches in the last year thanks to the console's unique ability to play games on a TV and on the go, but also thanks to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey. Though they came from 30+ year-old franchises, both games helped millions fall in love with them all over again. In 2018, Nintendo is setting its sights in a direction it hasn't aimed at...

Growing up, my black and faux woodgrain GE Digital Alarm Clock Radio was essential. I trusted it to tell me the time and make sure I wake up each and every morning—regardless of how many times I pressed its 9 minute snooze. Time has not been kind to that, now-vintage alarm clock. Somehow, it still does what it was designed to do, but in the last decade, my phone has taken all of its responsibiliti...

In the crowded Las Vegas airport on my way home from CES 2018, I wedged myself into an empty spot of wall next to an outlet. The outlet didn’t work. For a half-hour, I watched people wander up hopefully, charging block in hand, try it, and shuffle away, defeated. “It doesn’t work,” I said. “Sorry, it doesn’t work,” I’d say again. Over and over and over. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podc...

For a species that’s conquered Earth and traveled through space and invented the Slapchop, we humans sure are insecure when it comes to technology. Our greatest fear: the singularity, when the abilities of AI and robots surpass those of humans, growing so advanced that civilization is forced to reboot as humanity spirals into existential dread. Or worse, the machines turn us into batteries, à la T...

My test kitchen tends to be a pretty happy place to work. Case in point? I got to make fried chicken the other day. For it, I put the bird parts in a salty buttermilk bath for the afternoon, then cooked them using the brand new One Top from Tasty. I'd tell you more about that first batch of chicken, but in the frenzy, my notes were obliterated by hot sauce and the grease on my fingers. Learn more...