Tech
Why Is It So Hard to Fix an Electric Bike? (2026)
If you Ask any bike shop owner or manager if they fix electric bikes, you get an interesting array of stories.
“I know a guy who has lost a finger working on ebikes,” says MacKenzie Hardt, owner of Hardt Family Cyclery in Aurora, Colorado, and the former executive director of the nonprofit bike shop and community hub Bikes Together. Hardt has torn tendons in his own hand after accidentally triggering a cadence sensor that caused the wheel to spin out of control on the stand, even when the motor and battery were disconnected.
He now has a message on the company voicemail that informs customers the shop will not repair any ebike without third-party UL 2849 certification, the gold standard that certifies that an ebike’s entire package, from electrical drive train to battery to charger system, has been thoroughly tested. (Check out our guide to How to Buy an Electric Bike for more info.)
The Wild, Wild West
A lot of the problem in fixing ebikes is related to the fact that a surprising number of electric vehicles that are sold as ebikes are not, in fact, ebikes. According to PeopleForBikes, the third-party advocacy group, an ebike is a low-speed electric vehicle that “closely resembles traditional bicycles in their equipment, handling characteristic, size, and speed.”
A mechanic works on a bicycle.Photograph: Dikushin/Getty Images
In 46 states, all ebikes fall under a Class 1, 2, or 3 distinction. The distinction depends on the bike’s maximum motor-assisted speed and how it’s powered. However, many ebikes sold online are way more powerful than the maximum 28 mph speed allowed on a Class 3 ebike, and they operate more like a moped or even a motorcycle.
“That’s really the heart and soul of the service problem,” says Cory Oseland, manager of the Ski Hut, a high-end bike shop in Duluth, Minnesota. “Once you slide out of the three classes, you run into a lot of parts and equipment that aren’t part of the bike industry.”
Repairing an ebike can also land the shop in a quagmire of liability issues. As bike shops are part of the product liability chain, they can be held responsible if they so much as inflate a tire on an electric vehicle and the rider later injures themselves or another person. Ebike-related injuries have jumped more than 1,020 percent nationwide from 2020 to 2024, according to hospital data, so this is not an unforeseen occurrence. “I have known people who have lost their shirt,” says Hardt.
In most states, if the bike doesn’t fit the Class 1-3 classification system, the shop’s insurance will likely be null and void. The problem, says Hardt, is that “we don’t regulate nationally what an ebike is. What is legal here may not be legal somewhere else.” Working on an unregulated bike, he adds, “is like if somebody brought in a Tesla to fix.”
Google has announced that end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for Gmail on Android and iOS is now rolling out for its enterprise users. Emails that require E2EE in Workspace can be composed and read within the Gmail app, so eligible users won’t need additional apps or portals.
The new feature expands Google’s client-side encryption (CSE) offering, a little more than a year after E2EE was introduced to Gmail on the web. According to a Google blog post, any encrypted message sent to a recipient who uses the Gmail app will appear in their inbox as any email thread would. If they don’t have the app, they’re still able to read and reply to the email in their browser securely, regardless of their email address.
Google says the new functionality “combines the highest level of privacy and data encryption with a user-friendly experience for all users, enabling simple encrypted email for all customers from small businesses to enterprises and public sector.” Of course, “all users” applies only to Enterprise Plus members here, with the millions of people who use Gmail as their personal email service currently unable to take advantage of the highest level of privacy and data protection.
In order for Gmail users to start using E2EE in the app, an admin must first enable Android and iOS clients in the CSE admin interface, which is available in the Admin Console. When sending an email, you have to click the lock icon and select additional encryption before sending. Attachments can then be added as normal.
E2EE is available straight away in the Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains. Enterprise users will need the Assured Controls or Assured Controls Plus add-on, which provides businesses and organizations that handle sensitive data with extra security and compliance-related tools.
When it comes to smart glasses, Apple seems to be taking the road less traveled. While others have leaned on big-name eyewear brands to make their tech look fashionable, Apple appears ready to do what it does best: keep everything in-house and call it a day. Competitors have played it smart by teaming up with established eyewear giants. It makes sense. If you’re putting a camera on someone’s face, you might as well make sure it looks like something they’d already wear. Apple, however, doesn’t seem interested in that route. Instead of partnering with brands like Ray-Ban or Oakley, the company is reportedly building its own identity from scratch. Which is a bold move but also a very Apple move. This is the same company that turned wireless earbuds into a fashion statement and made smartwatches feel like personal accessories. If anyone believes it can pull off eyewear without outside help, it’s Apple.
From grand AR dreams to something more grounded
Interestingly, Apple’s current approach is a far cry from where it started. Years ago, the company had a far more ambitious plan for head-worn tech, juggling multiple ideas at once from AR-heavy devices to fully immersive headsets. The vision was futuristic, layered, and, in hindsight, a bit ahead of its time. Fast forward to today, and things look a lot more practical. Instead of jumping straight to full-blown augmented reality glasses, Apple is starting with something simpler: display-free smart glasses that prioritize everyday convenience over visual spectacle. The only product from its original roadmap to reach the market is the Apple Vision Pro. Everything else has either been reworked or pushed further down the timeline.
Apple’s upcoming glasses aren’t trying to plaster digital overlays in front of your eyes. There’s no built-in display here, which might sound like a limitation, but it’s actually the point. Instead, the glasses are expected to rely on cameras, audio, and tight integration with your iPhone to get things done. Of course, none of this works without a brain behind it. Apple is banking on a significantly improved Siri to tie the whole experience together. The idea is that the glasses can see what you’re looking at, understand the context, and offer relevant information or actions without you needing to ask much.
The Apple way, as always
By skipping partnerships with legacy eyewear brands, Apple is clearly betting on its own design language to carry the product. It wants these glasses to be instantly recognizable. It’s a risky move, sure. But if there’s one thing Apple rarely does, it’s share the spotlight.
So while Apple’s smart glasses may not come with a famous fashion label attached, that might be the whole point. This isn’t about borrowing credibility, it’s about creating it. And if Apple gets it right, you won’t be asking who made the frames — you’ll already know.
If you don’t want to bother with cutting your own cubes, then Klaris has you covered. Klaris has labored to make a kitchen countertop version of the classic Clinebell machine, and we loved it. Trouble is, it costs a hard-to-swallow $550. Now, however, the company has created a new, cheaper version called the Klaris Mini, which retails at a much more palatable $300. The small 8 x 8 x 8-inch box produces two ultra-clear, 2-inch cubes at a time, which can then be stored away in your freezer if you’re stocking up before a party.
Nice Ice
Now, these methods effectively banish those pesky bubbles, but what about replicating that glacial purity in your homegrown luxury ice? It turns out there are three solutions here, and all are easily attainable at home—the last one remarkably so.
“Glacial ice is quite pure because it comes from rainwater,” Salzmann says, adding that the way to get cleaner water at home is to remove the ionic impurities (dissolved inorganic salts, minerals, and metals that carry a positive or negative charge, such as calcium, sodium, chloride, and sulfates). Salzmann says a water filter will remove much of the tap water impurities and pollutants, or you can use what Salzmann recommends: deionized water—”the kind you would use for doing the ironing.”
But we’re not done yet. Now you have to get rid of the gases in your water that will increase the chances of cloudy ice. To do this, boil your water first to force out any gas, then freeze it before it can reabsorb any more.
There’s a nasty problem with drinking too much very pure water. “Within your cells in your body, there’s a lot of water—but there’s also lots of other stuff, dissolved materials that exert osmotic pressure on your cell membranes,” Salzmann says. “If the medium surrounding your cells does not have the same content of dissolved materials, there’s a different osmotic pressure. So, the bottom line is, if you drink too much deionized or super-pure water, it would be quite bad for you.” Now, we should point out here that you’d have to drink an awful lot of this pure water to run into trouble—a few ice cubes won’t come anywhere near close to causing you any problems.
Still, we can swerve even this last potential pitfall by turning to the sage advice of Kevin Clinebell, grandson of Virgil, who now runs the family company with his brother Scott.
“I’ve got a customer in Las Vegas that studied [using water filters], because Las Vegas has very poor water,” Clinebell says. “Their dissolved solids are something to the tune of 450 parts per million, whereas here [in Colorado], it’s 45 to 48 parts per million,” adding that the system was also very inefficient. “So he started playing with different bottled waters—Fiji, Aquafina, all different types. The one that he found that was as close to perfect as you could get is Crystal Geyser bottled water. That one gave him the best results of any water that he’s ever tried, and he’s running reverse osmosis and everything else.”
The fastest road-legal electric vehicle is probably not what you’d expect. It pulls up to the light, and it’s just 112 inches long and 2,150 pounds. The little yellow box with its comically tall roof and friendly headlights is quite unassuming — but Jonny Smith has made it into a supercar-beating machine.
Smith purchased the Enfield 8000 despite its flood damaged past, back when it originally produced 8 horsepower and had a top speed of 40 miles per hour. He clearly had a vision: With two 9.0in DC motors, the Enfield 8000, originally designed in the 1970s, now has 800 horsepower, 1200 lb-ft. of torque, and will most definitely smoke you at the light.
Now, the Enfield 8000 can reach 60 mph in under 3 seconds, and 113 miles per hour in 6 seconds. Its quarter mile record is 9.86 seconds, reaching 121 mph. “Everyone said it would be undriveable,” said Smith, “but it has exceeded expectations. I wanted to do an old EV and found this. I liked it immediately because it was odd, British and unlikely.”
Can the Enfield 8000 actually beat a Lamborghini Aventador SVJ?
Jonny Smith’s Enfield 8000 reaches incredible speeds very, very fast. But can it actually beat supercars? How does the Enfield 8000’s motors compare to the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ‘s 6.5 L V12? Well, the Aventador SVJ can reach 60 mph in 2.5 to 2.8 seconds and 124 mph in 8.6 seconds. Its quarter mile is 10.3 seconds at 136.4 mph. I’m no numbers cruncher or drag strip judge, but it does sound like the Enfield 8000 would beat the Aventador SVJ in a quarter mile with a photo finish.
The Enfield 8000 could also take on a McLaren 720s, a Porsche 911 GT3, and a Ferrari LaFerrari. What an entertaining drag race that would be! Of course, there has been an ongoing debate regarding the importance of 0-60 times now that even family-oriented SUVs can take off in just a few seconds thanks to the rise of EVs. But the Enfield 8000 can even keep up with the Tesla Model S P85D, which can hit 60 mph in 3.2 seconds in “Insane” mode.
Getting La Grande Combinasion in Steal a Brainrot is a big deal. It’s not often that you find a Secret Brainrot that has a lot of characters and makes a lot of money. In this guide, we’ll talk about all the possible ways to get it without making things complicated.
The main reason La Grande Combinasion is special is that it is very powerful and hard to find. In the game, it costs about $1 billion, but it gives you $10 million every second, which makes it one of the best ways to make money. Its design is also very different from anything else. It looks strange but interesting because it’s a mix of different Brainrots.
Get La Grande Combinasion in Steal a Brainrot
La Grande Combinaison is hard to get, but you’re not limited to just one method. Compared to Los Combinasionas, you actually have better chances here.
1. Buy from Conveyor Belt
The conveyor belt method doesn’t involve any risk, which makes it the best option for many players. However, the biggest challenge is waiting. To increase your chances a bit, you can buy Server Luck for 249 Robux, but even then, it may still take time.
- Save up $1 billion in cash.
- Keep checking the conveyor belt regularly.
- Buy it immediately when it appears.
2. Steal from Other Players
Stealing is the fastest way to get La Grande Combinasion, but you can’t just rush in. You need to watch the player for a bit and wait for the right moment when they’re not paying attention. If your timing is off, there’s a good chance you’ll get caught. So it’s better to plan things properly—know when to move and how you’ll get out quickly.
- Keep changing servers until you find the Brainrot.
- Watch the owner’s base and wait for a chance.
- Use trap or stun items to stop them.
- Take it and go back to your base right away.
3. Trade in Private Servers
It’s safer to trade on a private server than to steal from random players. The risk is lower because both sides agree ahead of time. But you should only do this with someone you trust, because mistakes or lying can make you lose your Brainrot.
- Join a private server with a friend or someone you know.
- Settle on a fair Brainrot trade.
- Finish the trade by taking things from each other’s bases.
How to Protect La Grande Combinasion After Getting It?
After you get La Grande Combinasion, you really have to stay careful. It’s valuable, so people will try to take it from you. Make your base stronger, use traps, and don’t just leave it unattended. Even being away from the game for too long can cause problems if someone finds an easy way in.
If you’re trying to get it faster, keep hopping between servers instead of waiting in one place. Sometimes you’ll get lucky that way. Playing during updates can also help a bit. Server Luck is there, but don’t rely on it too much. Just be ready so that when you finally get it, you don’t lose it right away.
Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.
Today’s NYT Connections puzzle is very tricky, especially the purple category. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.
The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.
Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time
Hints for today’s Connections groups
Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.
Yellow group hint: Let’s all go to the movies.
Green group hint: Abracadabra!
Blue group hint: Television people.
Purple group hint: Think hats.
Answers for today’s Connections groups
Yellow group: Seen outside a theater.
Green group: Accessories for a magician.
Blue group: TV show title surnames.
Purple group: They have caps.
Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words
What are today’s Connections answers?
The completed NYT Connections puzzle for April 13, 2026.
The yellow words in today’s Connections
The theme is seen outside a theater. The four answers are box office, marquee, ticket line and velvet rope.
The green words in today’s Connections
The theme is accessories for a magician. The four answers are cape, handkerchief, magic wand and rabbit.
The blue words in today’s Connections
The theme is TV show title surnames. The four answers are House, Lasso, Montana and Soprano.
The purple words in today’s Connections
The theme is they have caps. The four answers are baseball player, camera lens, mushroom and pen.
Three Apple Store locations in struggling malls are set to close permanently as summer kicks off, with one of them the controversial unionized store in Towson, Maryland.
Apple Trumbull | Image Credit: Apple
The stores in question are Apple North County, in Escondido, California, Apple Trumbull in Trumbull, Connecticut, and Apple Towson Town Center in Towson, Maryland. Notably, Apple Towson was Apple’s first unionized store.
Most employees will be shifted to nearby locations with no further action required by the employee, provided they agree to stay with the company. The unionized Towson employees will be eligible to apply for open roles at Apple, as per the existing bargaining agreement.
Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
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? 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.
The completed NYT Mini Crossword puzzle for April 13, 2026.
Mini across clues and answers
1A clue: Symbol in the middle of Captain America’s shield
Answer: STAR
5A clue: Chanel’s interlocking C’s, e.g.
Answer: LOGO
6A clue: Content creator’s output
Answer: VIDEO
7A clue: Two-word denial
Answer: IDONT
8A clue: Fits one inside of the other
Answer: NESTS
Mini down clues and answers
1D clue: Part of an office presentation
Answer: SLIDE
2D clue: List that might have check boxes
Answer: TODOS
3D clue: Contract negotiator
Answer: AGENT
4D clue: Jimmy Fallon’s house band, with “The”
Answer: ROOTS
6D clue: French for “wine”
Answer: VIN
Naming AI products is a bit hit-or-miss. Some names sound as if they were polished in a branding lab for six months, while others feel as though they were just pulled from a hat. Claude has a certain elegance. Gemini is fine. ChatGPT, on the other hand, is a rubbish name and only became familiar through brute force when it was suddenly absolutely everywhere.
Nano Banana, Google Gemini’s AI image generator that enables anyone to create realistic-looking pictures, is called Gemini 3 Pro Image Preview in Google’s technical documentation. However, the name “Nano Banana” is both more official and less official than you might think. Google openly calls it Nano Banana Pro — and even Nano Banana 2, now — but that wasn’t the original plan.
Nano Banana Pro has such a weird name because that moniker was never intended to be taken seriously. The team needed a temporary name for Arena.ai (then called LMArena), the crowdsourced model-testing platform where systems are compared anonymously. The codename wasn’t chosen until the last minute. Product Manager Naina Raisinghani was pushed to come up with something on the spot and suggested Nano Banana. It was a combination of two of her nicknames. “Some of my friends call me Naina Banana, and others call me Nano because I’m short and I like computers. So I just smushed my two nicknames together,” Naina revealed on Google’s blog, The Keyword.
Nano Banana quickly caught on
Despite Google’s attempts to keep its identity secret on Arena.ai, some people were quick to speculate that the highly rated new image generation and editing tool was a Google product. It was initially uploaded to Arena.ai on August 12, 2025. Within days, users were sharing their AI-generated creations on social media. After a week of speculation, a couple of X posts fueled users’ suspicions. Product Lead for Google AI Studio, Logan Kilpatrick, posted a banana emoji, and Naina Raisinghani, the developer behind the name, shared a picture of a banana gaffer-taped to a wall. Nano Banana was officially launched on August 26, 2025, upstaging ChatGPT as the most popular AI image generator.
https://t.co/9Qtne8CWwI pic.twitter.com/ejPA82QCcT
— Naina Raisinghani (@nainar92) August 19, 2025
It’s not the first tech product with “banana” in its name. We might be more familiar with Apple, Blackberry, and Raspberry Pi, but you can also purchase a bananaphone — a banana-shaped Bluetooth headset to pair with your smartphone. There’s also a 2019 research paper with a BANANAS algorithm, which stands for Bayesian Optimization with Neural Architectures for Neural Architecture Search. (You have to respect the contrivance even if it doesn’t quite work.) Tech companies are still naming things after fruit. OpenAI internally used “Strawberry” for the project that became o1, and Meta is currently working on an AI model nicknamed “Avocado.”
Nano Banana may not have been meant as the official name, but it stuck because people liked it. Companies spend fortunes chasing that kind of stickiness, and Google stumbled into it. The model got noticed, the odd codename was memorable, and Google was smart enough not to crush the joke with a committee-approved replacement.
Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.
Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a tough one. If you’re struggling with it but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.
Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.
Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta
Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups
Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.
Yellow group hint: Get your glove ready!
Green group hint: Sweat equity.
Blue group hint: There used to be a ballpark.
Purple group hint: Not night.
Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups
Yellow group: Field a baseball.
Green group: Work hard.
Blue group: Former MLB stadiums.
Purple group: ____ day.
Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words
What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?
The completed NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for April 13, 2026.
The yellow words in today’s Connections
The theme is field a baseball. The four answers are catch, field, pick and scoop.
The green words in today’s Connections
The theme is work hard. The four answers are grind, labor, strain and toil.
The blue words in today’s Connections
The theme is former MLB stadiums. The four answers are Polo, Shea, Turner and Veterans.
The purple words in today’s Connections
The theme is ____ day. The four answers are draft, game, opening and Ryan.
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