Consumer & Gadgets news
Consumer & Gadgets
Spotify Wrapped reminds us even our leisure time is being surveilled and sold
Each year as Spotify Wrapped drops, social media timelines fill with neon slides declaring who we "really" are. We trade our top artists and most-played songs like postcards from a year already fading.
12 hours ago
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Drivers struggle to multitask when using dashboard touchscreens, study finds
Once the domain of buttons and knobs, car dashboards are increasingly home to large touchscreens. While that makes following a mapping app easier, it also means drivers can't feel their way to a control; they have to look. ...
18 hours ago
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AI-generated podcasts flood the market, challenging traditional hosts and listeners
Chatty bots are sharing their hot takes through hundreds of thousands of AI-generated podcasts. And the invasion has just begun.
Dec 15, 2025
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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.
Dec 14, 2025
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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 ...
Dec 12, 2025
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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 ...
Dec 11, 2025
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Consumer & Gadgets
AI-generated political videos are more about memes and money than persuading and deceiving
Zohran Mamdani as a creepy trick-or-treater, Gavin Newsom body-slamming Donald Trump and Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero. This is not the setup to an elaborate joke. Instead, these are all examples of recent AI-generated political ...
Dec 11, 2025
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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 ...
Dec 11, 2025
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Consumer & Gadgets
New industry standards and tech advances make pre-owned electronics a viable holiday gift option
Electronic gifts are very popular, and in recent years, retailers have been offering significant discounts on smartphones, e-readers and other electronics labeled as "pre-owned." Research I have co-led finds that these pre-owned ...
Dec 10, 2025
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Internet
Australia's social media ban won't stop cyberbullying
The Australian Federal government's Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act, commonly referred to as the "social media ban," is now in effect.
Dec 10, 2025
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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 ...
Dec 9, 2025
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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.
Dec 9, 2025
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Consumer & Gadgets
The metaverse is ushering in a new era of behind-the-scenes exploitation
From ancient slavery to the factory floor, progress has often relied on the exploitation of human beings. We might like to believe those days are well behind us. But in the digital age, AI and the metaverse risk repeating ...
Dec 9, 2025
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Consumer & Gadgets
210,000 portable power banks sold on Amazon recalled after fire reports
A popular portable phone charger sold online has been recalled after reports that it can overheat and catch fire, federal officials said.
Dec 8, 2025
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Consumer & Gadgets
Number's up: Calculators hold out against AI
The humble pocket calculator may not be able to keep up with the mathematical capabilities of new technology, but it will never hallucinate.
Dec 7, 2025
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Consumer & Gadgets
Using food to uncover AI's cultural blind spots
CISPA researcher Tejumade Àfọ̀njá has co-authored a new international study that uses food as a starting point to reveal significant cultural blind spots in today's AI systems. The study also introduces a new participatory ...
Dec 4, 2025
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Consumer & Gadgets
Up your Christmas shopping game with AI tools
Shopping assistant chatbots were a novelty a year ago. Now, they're everywhere.
Dec 4, 2025
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Software
Software platform helps users find the best hearing protection
The world is loud. A walk down the street bombards one's ears with the sound of engines revving, car horns blaring, and the steady beeps of pedestrian crossings. While smartphone alerts to excessive sound and public awareness ...
Dec 4, 2025
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Internet
Down-ranking polarizing content lowers emotional temperature on social media: New research
Reducing the visibility of polarizing content in social media feeds can measurably lower partisan animosity. To come up with this finding, my colleagues and I developed a method that let us alter the ranking of people's feeds, ...
Dec 4, 2025
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Consumer & Gadgets
Audio-augmented wearable aims to improve mindfulness, with possible benefits for those with anxiety and ADHD
A new device uses focused sound cues to keep users grounded amid digital distractions, with possible benefits for anxiety and ADHD as well.
Dec 3, 2025
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Consumer & Gadgets
Chinese smart glasses firms eye overseas conquest
In China, AI glasses let the wearer pay in shops with just a glance at a QR code and a voice command, as a growing number of companies look to conquer both growing domestic and overseas markets.
Dec 3, 2025
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Consumer & Gadgets
How Starlink is connecting remote First Nations communities—and creating new divides
In the Cape York community of Wujal Wujal, local service providers used to hold their breath every time a big storm rolled in. Cloud cover could knock out their satellite internet just when they needed it most.
Dec 3, 2025
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Consumer & Gadgets
The PlayStation turns 30: Looking back at the console that gave us Lara Croft and 'The Last of Us'
When Kendrick Lamar began his Super Bowl halftime show earlier this year, he picked a stage design likely familiar to anyone tuning in: a square, triangle, cross and circle.
Dec 3, 2025
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Consumer & Gadgets
Ahead of new game release, 'Animal Crossing: New Horizons' book reflects on comfort, community, and capitalism
Remember Animal Crossing: New Horizons? During the height of its popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, the game, built for the Nintendo Switch console, was averaging 1 million copies sold per day. Now, almost six years ...
Dec 3, 2025
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