Consumer & Gadgets news

Consumer & Gadgets

What influences trust when conversing with chatbots?

Whether on your bank's website or your telephone provider's help line, interactions between humans and chatbots have become part of our daily lives. But do we trust them? And what factors influence our trust? Researchers ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Video game play gets frisky at CES gadget gala

Video game play met romantic intimacy in a corner of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) on Thursday—but it hasn't always been smooth sailing for sex toys at the Las Vegas gadget extravaganza.

Consumer & Gadgets

The 'Worst in Show' CES products put your data at risk and cause waste, privacy advocates say

So much of the technology showcased at CES includes gadgets made to improve consumers' lives—whether by leveraging AI to make devices that help people become more efficient, by creating companions to cure loneliness or ...

Consumer & Gadgets

A smart ring with a tiny camera lets users point and click to control home devices

While smart devices in homes have grown to include speakers, security systems, lights and thermostats, the ways to control them have remained relatively stable. Users can interact with a phone, or talk to the tech, but these ...

Consumer & Gadgets

TVs get smarter as makers cater to AI lifestyles

Dazzling televisions that routinely star at the Consumer Electronics Show opening here Tuesday are getting ever smarter with an eye toward being at the heart of AI-centered lifestyles.

Consumer & Gadgets

Homes talk and tables walk at AI dominated CES

Home appliances that do chores, cars that know your favorite cafe, and robot pets aiming to please are among artficial intelligence-infused offerings at the Consumer Electronics Show opening Tuesday.

Consumer & Gadgets

Seven advances in technology that we're likely to see in 2025

In the grand scheme of things, 45 years is not a long time. Back in 1980, it would take me three weeks to run a computer program, written in the programming language Cobol, that worked using punched cards. Each card represented ...

Consumer & Gadgets

EU universal charger rules come into force

EU rules requiring all new smartphones, tablets and cameras to use the same charger came into force on Saturday, in a change Brussels said will cut costs and waste.

Consumer & Gadgets

Why is it so hard to type in Indigenous languages?

When it comes to digital access and internet technologies, some languages are still more equal than others. Speakers of majority languages, who type in English or text in Korean, assume their message will be transmitted accurately. ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Bias in AI amplifies our own biases, finds study

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems tend to take on human biases and amplify them, causing people who use that AI to become more biased themselves, finds a new study by UCL researchers.

Consumer & Gadgets

An expert discusses the state of cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin were created to circumvent the monopoly on money held by nation states and central banks. The digital currencies were to function more democratically and be widely disseminated. But the opposite ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Q&A: To like or not to like—Facebook at 20

Those who are old enough might remember when "The Facebook" was a more exclusive club—one where only American college kids could post raucous party pix, browse through a crush's public photo albums or track down childhood ...

Software

Electronic music with a human rhythm

Electronically generated rhythms are often perceived as too artificial. New software now allows producers to make rhythms sound more natural in computer-produced music. Research at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and ...

Consumer & Gadgets

US Apple fans get hands on pricey Vision Pro headset

Eager customers lined up outside US Apple stores Friday to nab the first Vision Pro headsets, a $3,499 device that is the tech giant's biggest release since the Apple Watch nine years ago.

Consumer & Gadgets

How a 13-year-old beat Tetris

An extraordinary thing happened on December 21, 2023: 13-year-old Willis Gibson from Stillwater, Oklahoma, beat Tetris.