Category: Technology

At the end of February, Ultrahuman announced its latest smart ring which promises up to 15 days of battery life on a single charge. Sadly, if you were based in the US, you weren’t able to pre-order the Ring Pro, as the company has been locked in a longstanding legal tussle with ring rivals Oura. Now, however, it appears the situation has been resolved, with the US Customs and Border Protection giving its blessing. Consequently, pre-orders for the Ring Pro are starting today, with the first 1,000 customers to sign up getting a hefty bonus.

The smart ring market is still in its infancy, which means it’s fiercely competitive as companies try to keep their rivals at bay. Market leader Oura has been willing to protect its IP in court, issuing patent lawsuits against Ultrahuman, Samsung, RingConn, Reebook, Circular, Zepp, Nexxbase and Omate. In October 2025, Oura secured what it called a “decisive legal victory” over Ultrahuman, banning the import and sale of its rings in the United States. On its own website, Ultrahuman stated the lawsuit was lacking in merit, and that it was an attempt by a rival to hold down a “new player” with a “superior product.” Even so, the company’s Bhuvan Srinivasan told me in January that the Ring Pro has been designed to avoid any such legal drama going forward.

The standard price for the Ring Pro is $399, but you’ll need to fork out another $100 for the fancy schmancy charging case that adds so much more to the ring’s arsenal. But, for those 1,000 early birds, you’ll be able to pick up both the Pro and its case for $349, which is quite a hefty discount all told. If you’re customer 1,001 don’t feel too despondent, however, as Ultrahuman will still offer you some sort of discount if you’re quick.

If the Sonos app saga still has you down, Denon has three new multi-room speakers that give you some fresh alternatives. The company’s Home 200, Home 400 and Home 600 offer audio flexibility with other HEOS-enabled products. These new devices were also designed so that they blend in with home decor better than most speakers, coming in stone and charcoal color options for that purpose. As you progress up in number, the speakers not only get physically larger, but their sonic output is also more robust.

The Denon Home 200 houses three drivers and three amplifiers for “natural, room-filling sound” in a compact speaker. More specifically, you get two 0.98-inch tweeters and a single 4-inch woofer. The Home 200 looks a kind of like the Sonos Move 2, although Denon’s new compact unit isn’t portable. However, you can use a pair of them for a stereo setup, or connect two 200s to Denon’s Home Sound Bar 550 and Home Subwoofer for a 5.1 home theater system.

Next up is the Home 400, which carries two 0.75-inch tweeters, two 4.5-inch woofers and six amplifiers, in addition to two 1-inch up-firing drivers. Here, Denon says you can expect “a wide, airy soundstage” that provides room-filling audio coverage. What’s more, those upward-facing drivers project sound overhead, so there’s a greater sense of dimensionality and immersion here.

The Home 600 is the largest speaker in the new trio, with dual 6.5-inch woofers alongside two tweeters, two midrange units and two up-firing drivers. Denon explains that this configuration offers “deep, authoritative bass” that provides more depth in your tunes than other two models.

All three of the new Home speakers have Wi-Fi, Bluetooth USB-C and aux connectivity with the wireless streaming powered by Denon’s HEOS tech. As such, you can connect these Home speakers with up to 64 other HEOS devices — including A/V receivers and Denon’s new DP-500BT turntable — and arrange your audio gear in up to 32 different zones. You’ll have access to tunes from Tidal, Amazon Music HD and Qobuz in the HEOS app, and all three new Home speakers support Dolby Atmos Music where available.

The Home 200, Home 400 and Home 600 speakers are available today for $399, $599 and $799 respectively. They’re available from Denon directly or other authorized retailers.

Snapchat users are sending a staggering number of snaps to each other, according to newly released data from Snap. In 2025, Snapchat users created close to 2 trillion snaps, the company said in an update.

That works out to about 5.5 billion distinct snaps per day and about 63,000 each second, according to the company. When you consider that Snapchat has about 474 million daily users, that averages to more than 11 snaps per user each day. In a blog post, the company called it “a reflection of how often people are capturing a moment in a bid to connect with one another.”

The numbers offer a window into engagement on the nearly 15-year-old platform where much of users’ activity happens out of public view. The stat is the first time the company has shared the total number of snaps sent in a year, though Snap said last year its users shared more than 1 trillion selfie snaps in 2024.

Snap, which at times has struggled with user growth, has been inching closer to 1 billion users for the last year. It reported 946 million monthly users in its most recent earnings report. CEO Evan Spiegel described reaching a billion people as a “long term goal.”

Jim Lanzone, the CEO of Engadget’s parent company Yahoo, joined the board of directors at Snap on September 12, 2024. No one outside of Engadget’s editorial team has any say in our coverage of the company.

The Federal Communications Commission has released a notice today designating any consumer routers manufactured outside the US as a security risk. The rule states that new foreign-made product models for network routers will land on the Covered List, a set of communications equipment seen as having an unacceptable risk to national security. Previously purchased routers can still be used and retailers can still sell models that were approved by the prior FCC policies. In an exception to the usual rule, routers included on the Covered List can continue to receive updates at least through March 1, 2027, although the date could potentially be extended.

The move stems from a goal in the White House’s 2025 national security strategy that reads: “the United States must never be dependent on any outside power for core components—from raw materials to parts to finished products—necessary to the nation’s defense or economy.” The notice from the FCC states that companies can apply for conditional approval for new products from the Department of War or the Department of Homeland Security. However, that requires the businesses to provide a plan for shifting at least some of their manufacturing to the US in order to receive that conditional approval.

Few, if any, brands known for consumer-grade routers currently build products stateside. It seems likely this sweeping provision could face legal challenges from and cause confusion for the many companies that have production facilities overseas. In addition to Chinese tech giants like TP-Link, US companies will also be affected. NetGear, Eero and Google Nest are all headquartered domestically but have manufacturing in Asia. At least some of that manufacturing activity happens in regions like Taiwan that have historically been on good terms with the US. Until the sector sorts out this new restriction, don’t expect to see any new router models on store shelves.

EA has put another game on the chopping block, or at least the console versions of it. The company says it will delist the PS4 and Xbox One versions of Battlefield Hardline from digital storefronts on May 22, and shut down the online services on June 22. The single-player campaign will remain playable for those who own the game. The PC version of Battlefield Hardline isn’t affected by these changes.

In its announcement on X, EA didn’t explain exactly why it’s ceasing support for the game on PS4 and Xbox One. It pointed readers to a FAQ on its website that lays out some of the typical reasons why it ends online support for its games. These include factors like declining player bases.

Battlefield Hardline, which was released in 2015, will still be available on Steam as well as EA’s own PC app. The Steam version has a peak concurrent player count of 41 so far this year.

It’s hardly uncommon for a publisher to end online services for games with declining player bases, but it’s an issue that’s come into greater focus over the last few years thanks in part to the Stop Killing Games movement. EA alone has sunsetted dozens of games. Its website has a full accounting of these, spread across three webpages.

Anthropic announced today that its Claude Code and Claude Cowork tools are being updated to accomplish tasks using your computer. The latest update will see these AI resources become capable of opening files, using the browser and running dev tools.

When enabled, the Claude AI chatbot will first prioritize connectors to supported services such as the Google workplace suite or Slack, but if a connector isn’t available, it will be able to still execute an assigned task. Claude should ask for permission before taking these actions, but Anthropic still recommended not using this feature to handle sensitive information as a precaution.

Claude computer use will initially be available to Claude Pro and Claude Max subscribers on macOS. This feature is still in a research preview, so will continue to be adjusted based on Anthropic’s user feedback. It will also support use with Anthropic’s Dispatch feature, which allows a person to message the chatbot in a single continuous conversation across phone and desktop.

Claude Cowork was introduced in January. It’s an iteration of the Claude Code AI agent for programmers that is designed for more casual users.

Wing’s drone deliveries are coming full circle after adding Bay Area to its service locations. The drone delivery startup has been rapidly expanding to metro areas across the US, but is now targeting the tech-friendly Silicon Valley region.

Going back to its inaugural deliveries, Wing ferried office supplies across Google’s Mountain View campus in the Bay Area with its automated drones. It was still a startup out of Google’s X, The Moonshot Factory incubator at the time, but early users were already asking for home delivery services, according to Wing. Now, Wing’s latest delivery drones can deliver groceries, food, or whatever else fits in a small package weighing up to five pounds in 30 minutes or less to Bay Area residents.

It may not be that common to spot a Wing drone yet, but the company expanded its service to 150 more Walmart locations across the US, including Los Angeles, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Miami, earlier this year. The drone delivery company also extended its hours of operation to 9 AM to 9 PM in its Charlotte and Dallas-Fort Worth metros, with approval from the Federal Aviation Administration. Beyond the recent Bay Area expansion, Wing has previously mentioned Orlando and Tampa as potential markets to enter.

Apple is reportedly planning on inserting ads into the Maps app, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. An announcement could come as soon as this month, with the ads themselves appearing on iPhones this summer.

This will likely work similarly to ads in Google Maps and Yelp, which lets retailers and brands bid for coverage with particular search queries. I’ve personally never found the ads in Google Maps to be that annoying, so let’s hope Apple’s implementation is similar.

This potential ad revenue could seriously bolster Apple’s services business, which currently generates $100 billion a year for the company. This division accounts for around 25 percent of annual revenue but faces challenges in both the short-term and long-term, as regulators around the world push for changes to App Store policies.

Apple has yet to comment on the matter. This idea has been floating around since last year, with rumors going all the way back to 2022. The company already displays ads on the App Store and on the News app, so the jump to Maps isn’t coming out of left field.