Consumer & Gadgets news

Consumer & Gadgets

AI 'CHEF' could help those with cognitive declines complete home tasks

In the United States, 11% of adults over age 45 self-report some cognitive decline, which may impact their ability to care for themselves and perform tasks such as cooking or paying bills. A team of Washington University ...

Internet

WhatsApp data reveal people often deceive themselves

How quickly we reply, how active we really are in chats—many people misjudge their own behavior. Researchers at Bielefeld University have, for the first time, used anonymized WhatsApp metadata to make such misperceptions ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Brew, smell, and serve: AI steals the show at CES 2026

AI took over CES 2026, powering coffee machines to brew the perfect espresso, a device to create your perfect scent, and ball-hitting tennis robots that make you forget it's human against machine.

Consumer & Gadgets

From sci-fi to sidewalk: Exoskeletons go mainstream

Exoskeletons are shedding their bulky, sci-fi image to become lightweight, AI-powered consumer devices that manufacturers hope will become as commonplace as smartwatches, targeting everyone from hikers to seniors seeking ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Dose of uncertainty: Experts wary of AI health gadgets at CES

Health tech gadgets displayed at the annual CES trade show make a lot of promises. A smart scale promoted a healthier lifestyle by scanning your feet to track your heart health, and an egg-shaped hormone tracker uses AI to ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Smart glasses find purpose among blind users

The actual use-value of smart glasses remains keenly debated—but less so among blind people, who are increasingly relying on the latest models to improve their lives.

Consumer & Gadgets

Wearable tech can create more stress for frontline retail staff

With the Christmas trading period peaking, traditional surveillance technologies like CCTV can help reduce job stress caused by customer aggression, but QUT research has found wearable devices may increase stress levels among ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Tech savvy users have most digital concerns, study finds

Digital concerns around privacy, online misinformation, and work-life boundaries are highest among highly educated, Western European millennials, finds a new study from researchers at UCL and the University of British Columbia.

Consumer & Gadgets

Can AI be a good creative partner?

What generative AI typically does best—recognize patterns and predict the next step in a sequence—can seem fundamentally at odds with the intangibility of human creativity and imagination. However, Cambridge researchers ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Fairness in AI: Study shows central role of human decision-making

AI-supported recommender systems should provide users with the best possible suggestions for their inquiries. These systems often have to serve different target groups and take other stakeholders into account who also influence ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Amazon bets on color and AI with its priciest Kindle to date

Amazon.com Inc.'s new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is the company's most serious effort yet to turn its e-reader into a productivity tool. But with a starting price of $630—making it the priciest Kindle yet—Amazon will need ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Residential solar panels can raise electricity rates

A modeling study shows how, under some conditions, increasing numbers of households with rooftop solar panels can lead to higher rates for those without their own solar system. When utility customers cancel their accounts ...

Consumer & Gadgets

How 'everyday AI' encourages overconsumption

From automatically generated overviews to chatbots in spreadsheets, so-called artificial intelligence is increasingly being integrated into our watches, phones, home assistants and other smart devices.