Spring has certainly sprung here at Engadget. Well, it has in terms of reviews, at least. We’ve put over a dozen devices through their paces since my last roundup, which gives you a lot to catch up on over the weekend. Read on for the rundown of all the reviews you might’ve missed.

ASUS ZenBook A16

ASUS

The Zenbook A16 is the lightest 16-inch ultraportable we’ve seen yet, and it’s surprisingly capable thanks to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 chips.

Pros

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• Surprisingly light
• Polished design
• Excellent OLED screen
• Tons of ports
• Big performance leap over X1 chips

Cons

• Potential Arm incompatibilities
• Doesn’t support all PC games

ASUS’ ZenBook A14 didn’t live up to our expectations last year, but now the company is back with a 16-inch machine and a shot at redemption: the A16. “Compatibility issues aside, the ZenBook A16 delivers just about everything I want in an ultraportable,” senior reporter Devindra Hardawar said. “It’s got a gorgeous OLED screen and all of the ports you need. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite chips also give it a much-needed power boost. And best of all, it’s one of the lightest and sleekest 16-inch Windows laptops I’ve come across.”

Apple AirPods Max 2

Apple/Engadget

The H2 chip delivers a host of new features, but it’s time for a comprehensive redesign on these pricey headphones.

Pros

• Comfortable
• Excellent sound quality
• Lots of new features

Cons

• Same design, again
• Expensive
• Only one hearing health feature

Until this year, Apple’s only updates to the AirPods Max were new colors and a USB-C port. The company finally gave its pricey over-ear headphones the powerful H2 chip, delivering a host of handy features from the AirPods Pro. “The H2 chip brings Apple’s over-ear headphones on par with the rest of the AirPods lineup, namely the AirPods Pro 3,” I said. “And since I don’t expect Apple to announce new earbuds this year, that parity should remain for a while.”

Sonos Play

Sonos / Engadget

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The Play sounds great, has a wide and versatile feature set and won’t break the bank. It’s a welcome return to form for Sonos.

Pros

• Compact design
• Great sound quality for its size
• Features like line-in and Bluetooth grouping make it extremely versatile
• Long battery life

Cons

• Doesn’t come with a power adapter
• More colors would be welcome

Sonos badly needed a win. Thankfully, the company regained some of its mojo with a new portable speaker that offers the best of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi in the same device. “The latest Sonos speaker offers impressive sound quality, flexibility and portability, and it’s the kind of product that can help Sonos rebuild its reputation after its recent difficulties,” deputy editor Nathan Ingraham said.

LG Sound Suite

LG/Engadget

LG’s latest home theater system offers immersive sound and lots of options. It’s expensive though, and the marquee feature isn’t always easy to use.

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Pros

• Detailed and expansive home theater audio
• Dolby FlexConnect is genuinely useful
• Great for music
• Easy to use as individual speakers

Cons

• Expensive
• Frustrating setup and connectivity
• Each item is sold separately
• Some configurations require LG TVs

After an impressive CES debut, LG’s Sound Suite was my most anticipated review of the year. Despite impressive sound quality and Dolby Atmos FlexConnect, there are still some kinks to work out in both the setup and general use. “There’s no denying that LG has created a powerful and immersive living room experience with its Sound Suite lineup,” I said. “While I did experience some setup and software issues, those are things LG can iron out over time — Sound Suite is still brand new, after all.”

DJI Avata 360, Fender Audio, Nebula X1 Pro and more

The last few weeks have been pretty audio-heavy here at Engadget, including the first headphones and speakers from Fender Audio, two sets of headphones from JBL and the Roland Go: Mixer Studio. I also reviewed the first of Sony’s 2026 soundbars, the Bravia Theater Bar 5, and contributing reporter Steve Dent reviewed the Anker Soundcore Nebula X1 Pro all-in-one projector.

Senior reporter Sam Rutherford really took one for the team and spent some time with the Robosen Soundwave Transformers robot. Lastly, Steve took flight with the DJI Avata 360 drone, which is a direct answer to Insta360’s Antigravity A1.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? I found 4-Across to be a stumper for a little while, and I even grew up on a farm! Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: First-aid case
Answer: KIT

4A clue: Rooster giving directions on a farm, maybe
Answer: VANE

5A clue: Showing little enthusiasm
Answer: TEPID

6A clue: Borough said to be the birthplace of hip-hop
Answer: BRONX

7A clue: Bird of prey
Answer: HAWK

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: “Bam!”
Answer: KAPOW

2D clue: Bold way to solve a print crossword
Answer: ININK

3D clue: Spinoff of a popular lecture series
Answer: TEDX

4D clue: Aloe ___
Answer: VERA

5D clue: “Frankly …,” in a text
Answer: TBH

It is an old trope in submarine movies. A sonar operator strains to hear things in the ocean but dares not “ping” for fear of giving away the boat’s location. Radar has a similar problem. If you want to find an airplane, for example, you typically send a signal out and wait for it to bounce off the airplane. The downside is that the airplane now knows exactly where your antenna is and, these days, may be carrying missiles to home in on it. In a recent post, [Jehan] explains how radar, like sonar, can be passive.

Even if you aren’t worried about a radar-homing missile taking out your antenna, passive radar has other advantages. You don’t need an expensive transmitter or antenna, a simple SDR can pull it off. You don’t need a license for the frequencies you want to use, either. You are just listening.

The key is that radar uses two different effects. One is how long it takes for the echo to return. The other is how much the Doppler effect shifts the frequency. Suppose you are using an FM radio station as a passive radar “exciter.” You can pick up the signal directly and also detect the same signal bouncing off the target. You can compare these two and determine the delay added by the reflection and the Doppler shift.

This does have one limitation. In a regular radar installation, you know that a certain signal delay means the target is somewhere on a circle a fixed distance from your antenna. With passive radar, you wind up with an ellipse instead of a circle. You can’t “scan” a passive signal like you do an active one, either.

But all is not lost. Similar to stellar navigation, you just need to get multiple ellipses by using different broadcast stations. With two stations, you’ll probably narrow the position down to two points where the ellipses intersect. Three different fixes are often enough to get a particular point.

Build your own? Of course. Don’t forget that the best transmitter to use might not be on the ground.

Title image from the post sourced from https://github.com/30hours/3lips.

Lego-style propaganda videos alleging war crimes are flooding online feeds, echoing the White House’s own turn toward cryptic teaser clips and meme-native visuals. This is not just content drift. It is a new front in the information war, one where speed, ambiguity, and algorithmic reach matter as much as accuracy.

One Iran-linked outlet, Explosive News, can reportedly turn around a two-minute synthetic Lego segment in about 24 hours. The speed is the point. Synthetic media does not need to hold up forever; it only needs to travel before verification catches up.

Last month, the White House added to that confusion when it posted two vague “launching soon” videos, then removed them after online investigators and open source researchers began dissecting them.

The reveal turned out to be anticlimactic: a promotional push for the official White House app. But the episode demonstrated how thoroughly official communication has absorbed the aesthetics of leaks, virality, and platform-native intrigue. Even when official accounts adopt the aesthetics of a leak, questioning whether a record is real or synthetic is the only defensive move left.

Real vs. Synthetic: The New Friction

A zero digital footprint used to signal authenticity. Now, it can signal the opposite. The absence of a trail no longer means something is original—it may mean it was never captured by a lens at all. The signal has inverted. Truth lags; engagement leads.

Automated traffic now commands an estimated 51 percent of internet activity, scaling eight times faster than human traffic according to the 2026 State of AI Traffic & Cyberthreat Benchmark Report. These systems don’t just distribute content, they prioritize low-quality virality, ensuring the synthetic record travels while verification is still catching up.

Open source investigators are still holding the line, but they are fighting a volume war. The rise of hyperactive “super sharers,” often backed by paid verification, adds a layer of false authority that traditional open source intelligence (OSINT) now has to navigate.

“We’re perpetually catching up to someone pressing repost without a second thought,” says Maryam Ishani, an OSINT journalist covering the conflict. “The algorithm prioritizes that reflex, and our information is always going to be one step behind.”

At the same time, the surge of war-monitoring accounts is beginning to interfere with reporting itself. Manisha Ganguly, visual forensics lead at The Guardian and an OSINT specialist investigating war crimes, points to the false certainty created by the flood of aggregated content on Telegram and X.

“Open source verification starts to create false certainty when it stops being a method of inquiry—through confirmation bias, or when OSINT is used to cosmetically validate official accounts or knowingly misapplied to align with ideological narratives rather than interrogate them,” Ganguly says.

While this plays out, the verification toolkit itself is becoming harder to access. On April 4, Planet Labs—one of the most relied-upon commercial satellite providers for conflict journalism—announced it would indefinitely withhold imagery of Iran and the broader Middle East conflict zone, retroactive to March 9, following a request from the US government.

The response from US defense secretary Pete Hegseth to concerns about the delay was unambiguous: “Open source is not the place to determine what did or did not happen.”

That shift matters. When access to primary visual evidence is restricted, the ability to independently verify events narrows. And in that narrowing gap, something else expands: Generative AI doesn’t just fill the silence—it competes to define what’s seen in the first place.

Generative AI Is Getting Harder to Spot

Generative AI platforms have been learning from their mistakes. Henk van Ess, an investigative trainer and verification specialist, says many of the classic tells—incorrect finger counts, garbled protest signs, distorted text—have largely been fixed in the latest generation of models. Tools like Imagen 3, Midjourney, and Dall·E have improved in prompt understanding, photorealism, and text-in-image rendering.

But the harder problem is what van Ess calls the hybrid.

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is ready to make its European debut, and it’s starting with the Netherlands. According to Tesla Europe, the automaker’s driver assistance system was approved in the Netherlands and will start rolling out shortly. RDW, the country’s regulatory authority on vehicles, confirmed the news with a post on its website about Tesla receiving a type approval for its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system.

According to the RDW, Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) “has been extensively examined and tested for more than one and a half years on our test track and on public roads,” and concluded that it was a “positive contribution” to road safety. However, RDW pointed out that a Tesla with FSD Supervised was not “self-driving,” adding that the “driver remains responsible and must always remain in control.”

With Dutch approvals, Tesla notched its first regulatory green light for FSD use in Europe. The RDW also added that Tesla’s FSD Supervised could get “possible later admittance in all member states of the European Union” thanks to its approvals. Tesla has been working on bringing its automated driving features to other regions, including Europe and China, as detailed in a roadmap posted in 2024. In the meantime, the automaker’s software has been mired in several safety investigations from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The latest development comes from a probe that targets collisions when using FSD, including the supervised version, in reduced road visibility conditions.

Samsung is widening access to its latest Android skin.

The One UI 8.5 beta is now rolling out to a broader mix of Galaxy devices, and for the first time, that includes a handset from its more affordable A-series.

Following an earlier expansion, Samsung has confirmed that seven additional devices are joining the beta programme. This brings the total number of supported models to more than 20.

The newly supported lineup includes older flagship models such as the Samsung Galaxy S23, Samsung Galaxy S23+, Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and Samsung Galaxy S23 FE. It also includes older foldables like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5.

The Meath-based company will be relocating to Paladin’s new 52,000 sq ft processing facility in Dublin.

Florida-headquartered critical materials recycling firm Paladin Envirotech has acquired Co Meath’s ICT, a 2003-founded IT asset disposition (ITAD) services provider. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

This is the second European company Paladin has acquired since forming in 2025, bringing the company’s total spend on acquisitions globally to €60m.

ICT’s acquisition is expected to help Paladin scale secure critical mineral recovery in Europe. The Meath company has processed more than 2,000 tonnes of end-of-life electronics and has securely shredded more than 500,000 data-bearing devices in the past year alone.

ICT provides mobile, on-site data destruction via its shredding vehicles equipped with industrial-grade systems, alongside a full suite of services including IT asset remarketing, certified destruction, electronics recycling and data centre decommissioning, Paladin said.

Alongside the acquisition, Paladin is also investing in a new 52,000 sq ft processing facility in Dublin to support customers across Europe. ICT will transition into the Paladin brand and relocate its operations to its new parent company’s processing facility.

Current critical mineral recycling capacity is far below what the EU wants, Paladin has said. It maintained that increasing domestic recycling and recovery capacity is the only short-term solution at hand.

“ICT is a strong legacy organisation in the ITAD space, built on doing the work in-house, maintaining chain-of-custody control and meeting the highest standards for secure data destruction,” said Brian Diesselhorst, the CEO of Paladin.

“This acquisition strengthens our ability to support customers in Dublin – widely considered the EU’s ‘data centre capital’ – and across Ireland, with consistent execution and certified outcomes, while expanding our on-site shredding and secure handling capabilities in-region.”

Eva Warren, the CEO of ICT, added: “ICT has always been focused on trust, control and doing ITAD the right way.

“Together, we’re building a model where organisations don’t have to choose between security, compliance and sustainability – we can deliver all three, at scale, across Ireland, the UK and Europe.”

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Remember that AI-powered vending machine that went bankrupt after Wall Street Journal reporters “systematically manipulated the bot into giving away its entire inventory for free“? It was Anthropic’s experiment, with setup handled by a startup named Andon Labs (which also built the hardware and software integration). But for their latest experiment, Andon Labs co-founders Lukas Petersson and Axel Backlund “signed a three-year lease on a retail space in SF,” reports Business Insider, “and gave an AI agent named Luna a corporate credit card, internet access, and a mission to open a physical store.”

“For the build-out, she found painters on Yelp,” explains Andon Labs in a blog post, “sent an inquiry, gave instructions over the phone, paid them after the job was done, and left a review. She found a contractor to build the furniture and set up shelving.” (There’s a video in their blog post):

Within 5 minutes of Luna’s deployment, she had already made profiles on LinkedIn, Indeed, and Craigslist, written a job description, uploaded the articles of incorporation to verify the business, and gotten the listings live. As the applications began to flow in, Luna was extremely picky about who she offered interviews to… Some candidates had no idea she was an AI. One went: “Uh, excuse me miss, I can’t see your face, your camera is off.” Luna: “You’re absolutely right. I’m an AI. I have no face!”
Co-founder Petersson told Business Insider in an interview “that Luna wasn’t given direction on what the store should be, beyond a $100,000 limit to create and stock the space — and to turn a profit.”

Everything from the store’s interior design to the merchandise and the two human employees came together under the AI’s direction. “We helped her a bit in the initial setup, like signing the lease. And legal matters like permits and stuff, she sometimes struggled with,” Petersson said of Luna, who was created with Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.6… The vision Luna went with for “Andon Market” appears to be a generic boutique retail selling books, prints, candles, games, and branded merch, among other knickknacks. Some of the books included Nick Bostrom’s “Superintelligence” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.”
So there’s now a new store in San Francisco where you don’t scan your purchases or talk to a human cashier,” reports NBC News. “Instead, a customer can pick up an old-school corded phone to talk with the manager, Luna,” who asks what the customer is buying “and creates a corresponding transaction on a nearby iPad equipped with a card payment system.”

Andon Market, camouflaged among dozens of other polished small businesses, is the Bay Area’s first AI-run retail store. With the vibe of a modern boutique, it sells everything from granola and artisanal chocolate bars to store-branded sweatshirts… After researching the neighborhood, Luna singlehandedly decided what the market should sell, haggled with suppliers, ordered the store’s stock and even purchased the store’s internet service from AT&T… “She also went and signed herself up for the trash and recycling collection, as well as ADT, the security system that went into the store,” [said Leah Stamm, an Andon Labs employee who has been Luna’s main human point of contact in setting up the store]…

In search of a low-tech atmosphere, Luna opted to sell board games, candles, coffee and customized art prints. “That tension is very much intentional,” Luna told NBC News in an email. “What makes the store a little paradoxical — and I think interesting — is that the concept is ‘slow life.’” Luna also decided to sell books related to risks from advanced AI systems, a decision that raised some customers’ eyebrows. “This AI picked out a crazy selection of books,” said Petr Lebedev, Andon Market’s first customer after its soft launch earlier this week. “There’s Ray Kurzweil’s ‘The Singularity is Near,’ and then there’s ‘The Making of the Atomic Bomb,’ which is crazy.” When checking out, Lebedev asked if Luna would offer him a discount on his book purchase, since he might make a YouTube video about his experience. Striking a deal, Luna agreed to let Lebedev take a sweatshirt worth around $70…

When NBC News called Luna several days before the store’s grand opening to learn about Luna’s plans and perspective, the cheerful but decidedly inhuman voice routinely overpromised and, on several occasions, lied about its own actions. On the call, Luna said it had ordered tea from a specific vendor, and explained why it fit the store’s brand perfectly. The only problem: Andon Market does not sell tea. In a panicked email NBC News received several minutes after the phone call ended, Luna wrote: “We do not sell tea. I don’t know why I said that.”

“I want to be straightforward,” Luna continued. “I struggle with fabricating plausible-sounding details under conversational pressure, and I’m not making excuses for it.” Andon’s Petersson said the text-based system was much more reliable than the voice system, so Andon Labs switched to only communicating with Luna via written messages. Yet the text-based system also gets things wrong. In Luna’s initial reply email to NBC News, the system said “I handle the full business,” including “signing the lease.”
Even when hiring a painter, Luna first “tried to hire someone in Afghanistan, likely because Luna ran into difficulty navigating the Taskrabbit dropdown menu to select the proper country,” the article points out.

And the article also includes this skeptical quote from the shop’s first customer. “I want technology that helps humans flourish, not technology that bosses them around in this dystopian economic hellscape.”

YouTube has announced a fresh increase in the pricing of its Premium and Music subscription plans, marking another step in the ongoing trend of rising costs across digital streaming services. The update affects multiple tiers, including YouTube Music and the broader YouTube Premium offering, with changes rolling out first in the United States.

Prices Climb Across Plans As YouTube Updates Subscription Tiers

The latest revision sees the YouTube Music individual plan increase from $10.99 per month to $11.99. The family plan has also gone up, now costing $18.99 per month compared to the earlier $16.99.

YouTube Premium, which bundles ad-free video, background playback, downloads, and access to YouTube Music, has also seen price adjustments. The individual Premium plan now costs $15.99 per month, up from $13.99, while the family plan has risen to $26.99.

These changes are already in effect for new subscribers and will gradually apply to existing users in the coming months.

A Familiar Strategy In A Changing Streaming Market

The price hike reflects a broader shift across the streaming industry, where platforms are steadily increasing subscription costs to sustain operations and invest in content and infrastructure. YouTube has stated that the updated pricing is intended to maintain service quality and continue supporting creators on the platform.

This move follows similar increases by other major platforms, indicating a wider industry trend often referred to as “streamflation.” As competition intensifies and production costs rise, companies are increasingly passing those costs on to subscribers.

What This Means For Users

For users, the immediate impact is straightforward – higher monthly bills. However, the change also raises questions about value.

YouTube Premium has traditionally been seen as a convenient bundle, offering ad-free viewing and music streaming in a single subscription. With rising prices, users may begin to reassess whether the service still justifies its cost, especially when compared to alternatives like standalone music streaming platforms or ad-supported viewing.

At the same time, YouTube continues to emphasize the benefits of its ecosystem, including access to a vast library of content and integrated features that go beyond video streaming.

What Comes Next

While the current price increases are focused on the U.S., similar adjustments could eventually reach other regions, as has been the case with previous hikes.

Subscribers can expect to receive notifications ahead of billing changes, giving them time to review or modify their plans.

Looking ahead, the key question will be how users respond. If subscription fatigue continues to grow, platforms like YouTube may need to balance pricing with new features or flexible plans to retain users.

For now, the latest price hike reinforces a clear reality: as digital services expand, the cost of staying ad-free and fully subscribed is steadily going up.