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You can live a perfectly delightful mobile existence using an Android phone without tweaking a single setting. But where's the fun in that? Especially when a handful of downloads and a few minutes of tinkering can turn, say, your Galaxy S8 from a TouchWiz minefield into a digital zen garden. This has always been true. And if you're an Android power user, if you've installed a custom ROM (or even k...

Here at WIRED Transportation, we love a good, fast car: nimble, corner-hugging, fast as hell, shiny as all get out. This week was not supposed to be about those. We were ready to go all in on trucks, the lumbering elephants of the highway animal kingdom. There was, of course, last night’s glitzy Tesla Semi reveal—our own Alex Davies jetted down to the Tesla Design Studio in LA County to spend some...

In a perfect world, the electronic tolling infrastructure in the United States would be Mastercard seamless: Any transponder would get you through any toll plaza, debiting your account as you breeze across bridges and through tunnels with interstate abandon. But you can't. You should be able to though: In 2012 Congress passed a law requiring the nation's various electronic tolling authorities to c...

Amazon Echo and Google Home—and other devices that have Alexa and Google Assistant built in—are some of the most promising new technologies to come along in years. And they’re genuinely useful to have around, whether it’s to settle a bet or help out with a recipe. But it can also feel a little creepy to have a speaker in your house that’s always listening. What exactly is it doing with that info?...

The next big thing in cameras can't be measured in megapixels or lens elements. From now on, the best camera you can buy will be the one with the best algorithms. Whether you're playing with Portrait Mode on the iPhone, stitching together huge 3D images from the Light L16, or goofing off in augmented reality, all the hard work in your pictures now happens after you hit the shutter. For a couple of...

It’s that time of year again. Prepare for inspection. Get to the airport hours early, just to stand in line with other sleep-deprived travelers. March forward, splay open your belongings. Separate your valuable electronics and leak-prone liquids into trays. Try to ignore the frustrated tutting of the guy behind you. This is the airport TSA shuffle we all know and abhor. But now, thanks to new tech...

Tucked away in my mother's house, somewhere in the room that used to be mine, is a Nintendo GameCube that's not mine. My own GameCube is God-knows-where—languishing on some GameStop warehouse shelf, or in someone's garage, buried beneath an electric drill after an impulsive used-game purchase in the late 2000s. But this other GameCube, the one that's there now? I have no idea how it got into my ro...

Adam Savage is clearly overjoyed about his new bag. I met up with the gear-obsessed designer, former Mythbusters host, and Tested.com editor-in-chief at his workshop in San Francisco to see his latest creation. He's designed his first carry-all utility bag and launched a new brand, Savage Industries, to market it. With the same childlike glee he exudes on camera, Savage flipped the thing around on...

It’s that time of year again. Yes, it’ll feel great to be home, chilling out, stuffing yourself, falling asleep on the sofa. But boy, it’s going to suck getting there. That’s because 24 million people will travel on US airlines over the Thanksgiving period (up 6 percent from last year), according to the TSA. This week, even a short flight will feel like an epic journey, with many perils and demons...

Word of a new Leica camera leaked earlier this year. The only info one could gather from the photo blogs was that this new shooter was a compact camera that accepted L-mount lenses, and that its codename was "Clooney." Match the iconic Leica brand with a name like Clooney, and you could bet good money the thing was going to be handsome. Well, here it is, the Leica CL. And yes, it's very dapper. Le...

Maybe you like your Thanksgiving turkey dry and bland. I get it. There’s something deeply traditional about leaving the bird in the oven for hours and hours. Maybe you like the symbolism of a big bird taking up oven space, or maybe your overcooked turkey gives you an excuse to overload it with gravy. Maybe you’ve given up on bird altogether (one year, my mom served lobster for Thanksgiving. “No on...

Microsoft's Surface devices defy easy description. Even Microsoft itself has never quite known what to call them. It's the one device for everything in your life. It's a tablet that can replace your laptop. It's powerful as a laptop, lighter than air. It's powered by beautiful. In reality, the Surface is all those things—and none of them. The Surface Book 2, on the other hand, is really only one t...

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This week in "Your faves are problematic" news, Louis C.K. and Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner, your time has come. But in other news, Eminem has a new song with Beyoncé, which is giving the internet something else to talk about. Is there anything else that had everyone talking last week? Why, we're glad you asked. What Happened: Just how badly does the president hate CNN? Enough to potentially ste...

For a grain that is a staple in so many different cultures, rice is surprisingly difficult to cook. Most stove burners don’t have a setting that’s low enough to steam it properly without the pot boiling over, or scorching it. A perfectly-cooked pot of rice needs constant vigilance. That's why most people who cook rice with any regularity usually own a dedicated rice cooker. The Zojirushi NL-BAC05...

Congratulations, Rian Johnson—you survived the Star Wars obstacle course! In a world where not every director even gets to finish the movie they start producing, you, exalted amongst your peers, have not only wrapped one—you’ve been given more. Lucasfilm announced yesterday that you're getting your own trilogy (three films!) with which you can do whatever you want. (Like, within reason.) How does...

Trucks gather near the border to unload their cargo. Pack animals will carry the fuel across. Aslan works at a fuel depot in Pakistan. He is just 12 years old. Smugglers load donkeys and mules with fuel to cross the border. Abdowahed has a bachelor's degree in agriculture but turned to fuel smuggling after drought dried up his orchards in the province of Sistan and Baluchistan. He takes a bath in...

Steven Soderbergh is nothing if not ever-evolving—except, maybe, for tireless. After establishing himself as one of his generation’s great auteurs with movies like Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Out of Sight, and Traffic, he vowed to stop making theatrical films. During the supposed hiatus, he made HBO’s Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra, and two seasons of prestige drama The Knick for Cinemax. Lea...

Twenty years ago I called Carl Sagan to ask him why people believed crazy stuff. Sagan—astronomer, creator of the “golden record” messages to any aliens who might find the Voyager space probes, creator and host of Cosmos, novelist, arguably one of the best-known scientists of the 20th century—would’ve been 83 years old today. Me, I was a fact-checker on the science desk at Newsweek, which meant I...

Earlier this year, I caught myself complaining to a colleague that I don’t read enough books. I read more than ever, but I’d largely replaced books with magazine features, news stories, and tweets. (Mostly tweets, if I’m being honest.) I read in fits and starts: five minutes in line at Safeway, 20 minutes on the train, 15 minutes when I’m early at the restaurant. This, I whined to my poor colleagu...

Records may be made to be broken, but the laws of physics aren't even supposed to bend. Which makes it all the weirder that the Koenigsegg Agera RS just set a new production car speed record, hitting 277.9 mph. That is, to use the engineering term, insane. It pushes the limits of aerodynamics, suspension, engine power, and tire rubber. It seems impossible. Koenigsegg, a tiny Swedish supercar outfi...

On October 23, Doppler Labs founder Noah Kraft got a Facebook notification. One of those "On This Day" pop-ups, resurfacing a post from exactly two years ago, when Kraft had appeared on CNBC to make the case for his company. "We want to put a computer, speaker, and mic in everyone's ear," Kraft said during the interview. "We have very lofty visions of the future, everything from real-time translat...

The name “Timbuk2” has become synonymous with moderately-priced, high-quality bags. Their iconic messengers are emblematic of a place and time, a part of the 2000s Silicon Valley wardrobe that was as ubiquitous as a hoodie and a pair of Chuck Taylors. To not like a Timbuk2 bag is outrageous, like not liking cheap burritos, or sitting in sunny parks. And yet here we are. As much as it pains me to s...

If I told you Razer made a smartphone, you'd probably develop a mental picture pretty quickly. Since the company is mostly known for its gaming mice, keyboards, and laptops, you'd expect this phone to be For Gamers. It'd be crazy powerful, of course, with all the best specs and the highest numbers and probably a bunch of chips you don't need but sound really cool at a LAN party. It'd probably be h...

Neil Cormican has spent his career trying to fix the interface on your TV. Before he was the head of design at YouTube TV, Cormican worked on program guides, interactive systems, and web-based TV. Lots of ideas, always the same roadblock. "Everybody already watches TV," he says. "So everybody has an opinion, and everything you do is always wrong." To borrow a Gladwell-ism, just about everyone has...