The tricky thing about naming the year’s biggest losers in tech is that in 2024, it once again felt like everyone lost.
In recent years, reflecting on the past 12 months has seemed to bring back nothing but woe. Surprisingly, though, 2024 saw a higher number of candidates for good things in tech than bad.
My hand is cramping. It’s not carpal tunnel or some other dubious reason that’s causing the pain. It’s an analog ache that is oddly satisfying in a nostalgic way. In the last few days, I’ve held a pen and written more words for a much longer time than I have ever done in years.
It's almost Thanksgiving week here in the US, and that means gift-shopping season is in full swing. As the hardware launches slow down while companies wait for you to buy their wares, so, too, can our reviews team take a tiny breather. That respite will unfortunately be brief, as we begin to prepare for CES 2025 in earnest while getting some year-end retrospectives ready.
Caring for yourself can be as simple as sitting down to do a breathing exercise or curling up under a weighted blanket. Or it can be getting a massage, going for a workout or dressing up for a fancy dinner. There are plenty of things you could get for someone that not only shows how much you care about them, but also remind them that it’s worthwhile to take time for themselves. And while there’s nothing wrong with an aromatherapy candle, it’s more fun to go beyond the obvious choices and look at what tech products could help your loved ones feel their best.
The Apple Intelligence rollout has been slow, staggered and steady since the company first unveiled its take on AI at WWDC this year. It continues today with the release of the latest developer betas for iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia.
It’s a slower October than usual in the tech industry, thanks mostly to Google and Microsoft having held their typical fall hardware announcements earlier this year. Still, we’ve seen a fair number of companies reveal new devices in the last two weeks, while Amazon’s October Prime Day raged on.
Panos Panay has a Diet Coke problem. It’s a topic that quickly came up when I walked into the small interview room, after he offered me a choice of beverages and I said my partner has a similar addiction. After a quick conversation on the advantages of drinking plain water over diet colas, I knew his wife, like me, advocates for less soda, but I still knew nothing of how much the man actually consumed a day.
Seventeen years is an odd anniversary to call out. But at an event launching four new Kindles, Amazon’s head of devices and services Panos Panay reminded a group of media that “Kindle is 17 years in the making, almost to the day.” Panay added that the device is currently seeing its highest sales numbers, and that 20.8 billion pages are read each month on a Kindle. But people aren’t just reading on Kindles.