As we get out of the house, the gear-obsessed WIRED Reviews team is writing about our favorite bags and EDCs. Today, reviewer Boutayna Chokrane raves about her love for her Lululemon gym bag. You can also check out other Bag Check stories where WIRED writers share their carryall of choice.
I have long had a soft spot for messenger bags. There’s a retro Silicon Valley vibe to the crossbody that I respect: It implies you move fast, travel light, and keep your world compartmentalized. The unfortunate practical reality of many a messenger bag, though, is chronic neck and shoulder pain. With all of its weight relying on one strap, a single shoulder is left to bear all the burden. After a few blocks adorned with a messenger, you may feel that your style choice has transformed into a full-on punishment. After years of testing various incarnations of messenger bag—including micro slings and cavernous totes—I’d made peace with this trade-off. Beauty is pain, after all.
Then I met the comfort-forward, durable, and compact-yet-cavernous Lululemon 3-in-1 Duffle.
Lululemon
True to its name, it’s a multi-use transport system that is easy to reconfigure when my commute demands a different carry. You can grab it by the top handles, sling it across your body when you need your hands, or detach the shoulder strap and wrap it around your yoga mat to use it as a stand-alone mat carrier. No matter how you task it to carry your stuff, rest assured the bag’s design promises utility and comfort: The strap is cushioned enough to spare your shoulder, resilient enough to handle the load of your gym gear, and springy enough to double as a stretching strap. Every component of the duffel has a reason to exist, and some of them even have two.
I’ve been toting this duffel for the gym four days a week since January 2025, which is about as real-world a test as it gets. It has endured Chicago at its most extreme: sleet, wet snow, and torrential rain. The water-repellent nylon shrugs off all elements without any fanfare. The bag dries fast, resists grime, and—most impressively to me—doesn’t hold onto odor. Trust me, I’ve pushed that boundary more than once with sweaty clothes after hot Pilates and have found the included drawstring pouch effectively quarantines everything.
It’s also low-maintenance: After a trip to the beach, a couple of quick shakes cleared out any memory of sand. This duffel requires blessedly minimal upkeep, save for the occasional spot clean, making it a refreshingly low-effort option for commuters who don’t need another chore on their to-do list.
The design is deceptively compact. Externally, it presents as a modest and understated gym bag. But peek inside, and you’ll immediately see that this duffel, with its shocking 30-liter capacity, is Poppins-esque. There’s a dedicated shoe compartment on the side that accommodates up to a men’s size 14, though I prefer to use the bottom section for footwear to keep the main cavity flexible. There’s a slot for a 24-ounce water bottle, interior pockets for keys, AirPods, and other small essentials that tend to disappear into bag voids, and there’s still room for a change of clothes, a Theragun, and a dopp kit. Nothing about this bag feels over-engineered, but nothing feels missing, either.
The FBI is warning about the Kali365 phishing-as-a-service platform (PhaaS) that is used to hijack Microsoft 365 accounts by abusing OAuth device code authentication to steal session tokens and bypass multi-factor authentication (MFA).
According to the FBI PSA, Kali365 first emerged in April 2026 and is distributed via Telegram channels for cybercriminals seeking an easier way to compromise Microsoft 365 accounts without stealing passwords or intercepting MFA codes.
The platform uses device code phishing, an increasingly popular method that abuses Microsoft’s legitimate OAuth 2.0 Device Authorization grant flow to gain access to Microsoft Entra and Microsoft 365 accounts.
This authentication method was created to allow devices with limited input capabilities, such as smart TVs, conference room systems, streaming devices, printers, and IoT devices, to authenticate via another device using a short code at Microsoft’s device code login portal, http://microsoft.com/devicelogin.
In February, BleepingComputer reported that extortion gangs, including the ShinyHunters cybercrime group, were targeting Microsoft Entra accounts via device-code and voice phishing.
In these attacks, threat actors initiate the device authorization process themselves to generate a code, then trick targets into entering it on Microsoft’s login page via phishing and social engineering.
Once the victim enters the code and completes MFA, Microsoft issues an OAuth access token that grants the threat actor full access to their account without requiring them to solve any MFA challenges.
The threat actors now have full access to all applications the user normally has access to via their single-sign-on account, including Microsoft 365, Salesforce, or any other cloud SaaS platforms, which are then used to steal data.
The FBI warns that Kali365 gives even low-skilled attackers access to advanced phishing capabilities, including AI-generated phishing lures, automated campaign templates, real-time victim-tracking dashboards, and token-capture functionality.
Security researchers at Arctic Wolf reported on Kali365 activity in April after observing a widespread campaign targeting organizations worldwide.
The researchers said that the campaigns primarily targeted Microsoft 365 environments using phishing emails that directed victims to Microsoft’s device code login portal, where they unknowingly authorized attackers to access their accounts.
The researchers said the resulting attacks gave the hackers access to their mailboxes, where they created malicious inbox rules designed to hide their activity.
In some of the attacks, attackers also registered new devices in victims’ Microsoft environments, further extending their access to the breached network.
Arctic Wolf found that Kali365 operates as a business, with admins who manage product development, resellers who promote the service to other threat actors, and affiliates who conduct phishing attacks.
The researchers say the platform offers two separate attack modes, with the first being device code phishing and the second being an adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) mode named “Cookie Link.”
Cookie Link proxies victims through attacker-controlled infrastructure that captures authenticated browser sessions, session cookies, and tokens after targets log in and solves MFA challenges.
The FBI recommends companies restrict or completely block device code authentication flows using Conditional Access policies where possible, audit existing device code usage, and block authentication transfer policies that allow authentication sessions to move between devices.
The agency also urged impacted organizations to report incidents to the Internet Crime Complaint Center and preserve phishing emails, suspicious login information, and unauthorized device registrations.
Device code phishing has seen widespread adoption in 2026, with other threat actors and platforms now using it as part of their phishing campaigns and attacks.
This adoption includes the EvilTokens PhaaS and Tycoon2FA, which are also using it to compromise Microsoft 365 and Entra accounts.
Automated pentesting tools deliver real value, but they were built to answer one question: can an attacker move through the network? They were not built to test whether your controls block threats, your detection rules fire, or your cloud configs hold.
This guide covers the 6 surfaces you actually need to validate.
The strategy outlines plans to present Ireland as a global leader in engineering by broadening the talent pool and accelerating learning velocity.
Engineering Skillnet and business representative body Ibec have unveiled a new strategic plan, ‘Engineering a Skills-First Future 2026-2029’, which aims to address industry skill issues.
The plan was developed in collaboration with industry leaders, learners and the Engineering Skillnet steering committee to build on a robust approach to identifying talent gaps and mapping emerging technologies to ensure Ireland’s engineering workforce remains agile, productive and globally competitive.
The strategy outlines plans to present Ireland as a global leader in engineering by broadening the talent pool and accelerating learning velocity, according to its creators.
According to research underpinning the strategy, 84pc of engineering employers are experiencing challenges in the identification of skills. Meanwhile, 54pc of all staff were found to be in need of major skilling or upskilling.
To combat these challenges, the strategy found that there needs to be a fundamental shift from a traditional focus on job roles and fixed titles towards a more human-centric, skills-first approach, as a means of further developing the workforce.
Commenting on the research and strategy, Pauline O’Flanagan, the director of Engineering Industries Ireland, noted a critical alignment with national competitiveness.
“In 2026, global competitiveness is defined not by hardware or capital investment alone, but by the skills agility of our workforce to operate and optimise increasingly complex, interconnected systems,” she said.
“To remain a global leader, Ireland must look beyond traditional job classifications and embrace a skills-first approach.”
Fiona Fennell, the network manager of Engineering Skillnet, added, “Work is changing at a rapid pace, with jobs fragmenting and many skills now expiring quickly. Ireland has a uniquely multi-skilled workforce, but how we identify and develop talent needs to evolve.
“We believe that a ‘skills-first’ blueprint is essential to secure Ireland’s economic future. This approach moves away from viewing talent purely through titles or credentials, prioritising instead the balance of confidence and competence needed to perform work well.
“Given shifting geopolitics and demographics, this strategic plan represents a profound commitment to future-proofing skills mobility, starting right from the factory floor.”
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Tech industry layoffs may be worse at large tech companies than the rest of the IT industry. The New York Times argues those layoffs have now shifted the culture at Big Tech companies, after interviewing more than two dozen of their workers. “Cooperation and collegiality are on the wane; chumminess between employees and managers has cooled as mutual suspicion pervades their relationships; and a throbbing economic anxiety infects almost every conversation.
“Perhaps no site on the internet reflects this transformation more vividly than Blind, where users can post in private channels restricted to employees of a single company, or public channels visible to anyone…”
Since 2022, large tech companies have collectively laid off more than 150,000 workers, unraveling what many tech workers once perceived as a guarantee of affluence and employability. The threat of being replaced by artificial intelligence has loomed over those who remain. This year alone, Amazon has indicated that it is laying off more than 15,000 workers, Block 4,000, Meta 8,000 and Oracle an estimated 30,000… By most measures, the sentiments that Blind tracks have taken a turn for the worse. During the nearly four years before tech companies began major layoffs in the fall of 2022, Meta and Microsoft employees posted about career success — topics like how to maximize their salary or win promotions — more than four times as often as they posted about job insecurity, according to Blind. Since then, the ratios have lurched in the opposite direction: Meta and Microsoft employees have posted about job insecurity roughly 1.5 times as often as they post about success…
The shift has had practical effects. A Meta employee said in an interview that some workers on her team now used less vacation time and that, in a break with custom, people frequently checked on their projects while on vacation. They increasingly worry about getting a poor performance review or losing their job if they aren’t constantly available. The employee, who declined to be identified for fear of retribution, said she and many of her colleagues frequently checked Blind because it could be comforting to see how many other Meta workers shared their anxieties. Employees at several companies said in interviews that their morale was further undermined by the feeling that the layoffs were abrupt and arbitrary, and executed with little empathy.
Several tech workers said it was the scarcity of information about possible layoffs that raised their cortisol levels and made it difficult to focus on their jobs. They often fill the vacuum by turning to Blind, which, in addition to posts by workers, features a “tech layoff tracker” that lists both layoff rumors and those it has confirmed. “I was on Blind five days a week,” said Faith Wilkins El, a software engineer who was laid off from Oracle in late March, after more than four years at the company. Wilkins El, who is part of the Oracle Workers Collective, a group seeking better severance agreements with the company, said navigating Blind was sometimes stressful because it was hard to know what was true or false. (Blind says it has a security team to weed out bad actors, like those who may try to register under fake email addresses.) Still, she found it more helpful than not because the layoffs came as less of a shock after she spent time on the site. “I was trying to get prepared mentally,” she said.
Blind is capitalizing on the increased interest with new products. It plans to unveil a service called Blind AI, which will allow employers to simulate their workers’ reactions to certain changes, like a stricter in-office mandate. And it is close to releasing a feature to alert users that layoffs are imminent.
The approach, still in development, aims to produce processors that reach transistor densities comparable to a 1.4-nanometer process by 2031. That level of density is widely viewed as the next milestone for leading chipmakers such as Intel, TSMC, and Samsung Electronics, all of which rely on extreme ultraviolet lithography systems…
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Monday morning, the Roman Catholic Church made its biggest foray yet into the discourse on artificial intelligence and the role it should play in human life as the technology develops.
In the first encyclical of his papacy, titled Magnifica humanitas (Latin for “magnificent humanity”), Pope Leo XIV argued that AI is not intrinsically immoral, but that its adoption needed to be slowed in order to build moral guardrails, to establish better social safety nets for those displaced by economic and labor disruptions, and to create democratic processes that will ensure the public remains in control of these developments, rather than a small subset of tech oligarchs. The document also contended that the “intelligence” in artificial intelligence was a misnomer: Intelligence is something only human persons possess, and technology will never be human.
Encyclicals are official teaching documents of the Catholic Church: letters issued by popes to bishops after consultation with theologians, historians, and experts on pressing matters that affect humanity or the church, with the expectation that all people, faithful or secular, can learn from them and help shape their consciences and lives. Magnifica humanitas is Leo’s first encyclical since becoming pope last year, and its release now underscores the focus the new pope is putting on AI and technology. Notably, Leo also used the occasion to make a historic formal apology for the Church’s previous defense and justification of slavery — a reminder that the Catholic Church has not always been on the right side of social ills.
Though popes are traditionally not present during the release of these documents, which first began in the 18th century, Leo XIV was in attendance at its presentation, and delivered his own comments — something Vatican observers indicated reflected his desire to make sure the Church’s stance was properly understood. The Chicago-born pontiff spoke in English and was joined by AI experts and industry leaders, including Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah, who consulted on the document.
So how should the public process and think about this new document? It’s helpful to first understand the context in which the Church is speaking up about this at all.
Magnifica humanitas is dropping more than a week after Pope Leo XIV actually signed it on May 15. The timing matters.
That day marked 135 years since the release of Rerum Novarum, the seminal work of Pope Leo XIII, the current pope’s namesake, who was leading the church during the late stages of the Industrial Revolution. As they are today, the faithful, and the clergy, were facing a rapidly changing world. And the Church, the world’s leading moral authority at the time, had yet to establish its place in it.
That 19th-century document made philosophical arguments about the relationship between labor and capital, warning about the perils of communism. But it also redefined the church’s relationship to the modern world, with the papacy reasserting itself as both a source of power and a moral authority in an era of rapid change. The encyclical set a template for how a 2,000-year-old institution could still remain relevant in a modern age.
In presenting this encyclical, Pope Leo XIV made this parallel clear. He sees the rise of artificial intelligence as the defining global challenge of the day, and of his pontificate: “Like the earlier Leo, I feel entrusted to look upon another huge transformation with eyes of faith, with lucidity of reason, with openness to mystery and with cries of the poor and the earth resounding in my heart,” the pope said while presenting his encyclical.
The newer encyclical builds off his predecessor’s tradition, and the various arguments popes have made about the importance of preserving the dignity of the human person and valuing modern technology only so long as it benefits everyone, not just its creators or the rich.
In 2015, Pope Francis, for example, wrote about “the technocratic paradigm” that has taken root in modern capitalism: the sense that technological progress is unstoppable, that it will demand unlimited concessions from nature and from people, and that the world had no choice but to submit to change.
“Leo is concerned that we don’t just submit to inevitability on questions of AI, but ask critical questions and push back in ways that are necessary before it’s too late to push back, before damage is done that can’t easily be undone,” Dan Rober, an associate professor of Catholic Studies at Sacred Heart University, told me.
That role of questioning, pausing, and coming to consensus has defined the Catholic Church’s leadership and operation for the last two papacies: the notion of synodality, or teaching and making decisions based on consensus. Before AI and the technologists who have created it become the sole determinants of how politics, the economy, and society operates, the Church is asserting itself as a counterweight — even as it includes some of those leaders in the process.
“Pope Leo is trying to clearly walk in those footsteps, and I think he’s very concerned, as are a lot of people, about the possible implications, particularly for job markets and for people’s lifestyles being sustainable day to day with the rise of AI systems that may render a certain significant amount of jobs able to be automated very rapidly,” Rober said.
This kind of reflection has become standard procedure for the Vatican. Since at least the turn of the century, the Church has found itself increasingly weighing in on the crises of the day, albeit often a bit too late.
As the Catholic writer Christopher Hale has noted, “Francis took up the climate fight with Laudato Si in 2015, after decades of scientific consensus had been ignored. Benedict XVI took up the global economic order with Caritas in Veritate in 2009, after the financial system had already collapsed. Both documents arrived in the long shadow of the crises they addressed.”
In Magnifica humanitas, Pope Leo XIV may be seeking to intervene early in the development or takeover of a new technology this time, and show that the Church wants to both work with Silicon Valley and assert itself as a powerful defender of modern values, as it has done in its defense of the liberal international order and aspects of humanism, like human autonomy and reason.
In the background, there’s also a more sci-fi element: the notion that AI could end up coming between the Church and the people — serving as a filter or layer between regular people and God, and perhaps even usurping the role of the Church itself. The Catholic Church, famously, is concerned with the proper interpretation of scripture, Biblical truths, ethics, and God. Bloody wars waged and hard-fought reformations turned on this central question of who and how one can commune with God. Now, AI enters as another middleman.
“That’s closely related to the question of people using AI as a therapist,” Rober told me. “You could see a way in which AI becomes its own kind of religion, and certainly the way a lot of the Silicon Valley founders talk about it, it does have religious overtones to it. You listen to the Google founders talk about the singularity, and that sounds a lot like religion.”
It’s in this context that this document, and its specific teachings, lands.
Magnifica Humanitas is not the Vatican’s first examination of the role of AI in modern life.
Just last year, in the twilight of Pope Francis’s pontificate, the Vatican released a teaching note, Antiqua et nova, that laid the groundwork for Leo’s encyclical. That 2025 document established that the Church is not opposed to the development of AI: technological progress and scientific discoveries are part of the natural way that humans are meant to honor God, his creation of humanity in his image, and the natural outpouring of God’s gift of reason and rationality.
But it also established a distinction between human intelligence and machines that analyze data and perform processes. It insisted that artificial intelligence, like all technology, should serve humanity, not the other way around. And it emphasized the risk that new technology poses to the ability to, right to, and dignity of work, especially for the least well off in society.
In the encyclical, Leo uses the biblical parable of the Tower of Babel — a warning about human hubris — to make this case: “We must, then, avoid the ‘Babel syndrome,’ namely the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak,” he writes. “The risk of dehumanization — of building a future that excludes God and reduces the other to a means — is an ancient and ever-new temptation that today takes on a technical guise.”
This builds off of a long tradition of focusing on not just the dignity of work and workers, but also more recent concerns that modern capitalism facilitates a “throwaway culture” that views people and things as, at best, cogs in the service of a greater machine.
“He wants to talk about the idea that our humanity is meaningful in and of itself and that work is part of that, even if AI systems are able to allow for more leisure and even if something like universal basic income were to be made available, people need to find to have work of some kind to have meaning in their lives,” Rober said.
The encyclical’s teachings can be broken up into three broad categories: regulations on how AI is developed and how individuals adopt it, the responses required to handle the economic effects of AI, and limits on AI’s usage in war.
The practical recommendations and concerns Leo outlines include:
From an eagle-eye view, the document is fairly wonky and detailed: concerned with very practical matters and specific recommendations that could have come from academia, or a secular background — underscoring just how much Leo may hope it can provide guidance for leaders and individuals, as opposed to remaining siloed to the intellectual class. So as this technology continues to develop, the pope and the church want to help shape it. They want the faithful to be reminded that whatever AI offers is not reality, not personhood, and not God. It is a tool that should not dominate or determine the lives of its users. And it should not replace the role of the Church in teaching morality and ethics.
For the greater secular world, the Church wants to remind the public that they should have a say in how AI shapes their world; they should not allow business and tech leaders to define the terms of existence through their machines; and that they have a powerful ally in the Roman Catholic Church in the effort to preserve human dignity in the face of unprecedented technological change.
I’ve been covering deals since 2013, and I still think Memorial Day sales are worth checking out. There are so many made-up shopping holidays these days that it can be difficult to ascertain when items are actually cheaper than usual. Now is one of those times. To help you out, I’ve scoured through our buying guides full of hand-tested items to find gadgets and gizmos that are discounted—and worth buying. If you’re in the market for something we’ve tested, keep checking in through May 26 to see if you can snag a deal. We’ll update this post again between now and then.
Make sure to check out our various buying guides for recommendations on the best laptops, the best printers, and more. You might also be interested in the rest of our Memorial Day deals coverage.
Updated May 25: I’ve added 5 new deals, removed expired discounts, and checked for accuracy throughout.
WIRED Featured Deals:
Netvue
A few different combinations of our favorite smart bird feeder are on sale. You can choose a version with or without solar charging. There’s also the option of buying a model that comes with lifetime AI bird identification; otherwise, if you decide you want it later, it’ll cost you $5 per month, but it isn’t required for enjoyment. This bird feeder is equipped with a 1080p camera that can capture decent footage of whoever comes to snack. It has a wide field of vision as well, and the feeder is easy to clean and refill.
Last week, the US government announced $2 billion in investments in quantum computing companies, allocating $100 million each to a range of startups in exchange for equity in the companies. Those could be make-or-break investments for many companies that are likely years away from a product that could see widespread use. But a member of the US Congress is now arguing that those deals are illegal, as Congress did not allocate the money for this purpose—instead, it was meant to support public research in semiconductors.
But the biggest chunk of money would go to a company that likely wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the government’s backing. Anderon will be set up with a billion dollars each from IBM and the government and will inherit personnel and IP from IBM. It will serve as a foundry for fabricating quantum processing units and will contract its services out to IBM and any other company that wants access to cutting-edge hardware.
Zoe Lofgren (D–Calif.), the ranking member of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, made it clear that she is not happy with how the government is using its money to support this technology.
“This announcement is illegal and troubling on so many levels,” Lofgren said one day after the announcement, pointing out that the money being used for the deal comes from the CHIPS and Science Act, which was passed during the Biden administration and was allocated “specifically for microelectronics R&D, with a focus on semiconductor technology.”
That technology overlaps only partially, at best, with what’s used in quantum processors. In addition, Lofgren says the money was allocated to foster public/private research partnerships, which these deals most decidedly are not. Finally, she noted that the largest sum of money will go to IBM, and she suggested that a former IBM executive (Dario Gil, current Under Secretary for Science at the Department of Energy) was involved in the negotiations that led to this deal.
None of this, she noted, means that quantum processing technology is a bad investment or that any of these companies are unworthy of support. She just argues that doing so would require Congress to allocate the money to do so.
Gemini wants to talk. All the time.
Google I/O 2026 kicked off this week, and to no one’s surprise, it was almost completely about AI.
To start with, Google is rolling out its “intelligent, AI-powered Search box” globally. Instead of just autocompleting your text, it uses AI to anticipate your intent and help you formulate questions. You will be able to use images, video files and entire Chrome tabs as direct search inputs. Its AI Mode, now powered by the new Gemini 3.5 Flash, will still live alongside it, for your follow-up questions/corrections.
Google also introduced Gemini Spark. Running in the cloud, Spark is a digital assistant that can autonomously monitor credit card statements for hidden subscriptions, track updates from your kid’s school emails, or pull notes together into a Google Doc. It can even interact with third-party apps like OpenTable and Instacart to complete tasks—though it promises to ask for your confirmation before making any final purchases or sending emails. Google may have figured out a way to take the fun out of shopping.
There were glimpses of future hardware: Google and Samsung teased a collaboration with Gentle Monster and Warby Parker and offered the first look at two models of Android XR smart glasses. The glasses will allow you to chat with Gemini, get real-time audio translation in the speaker’s voice, translate real-world text in your line of sight and snap photos on the go.
Naturally, with all these new features, Google adjusted its AI subscription tiers, adding a new $ 100-per-month mid-range (hah!) tier. The AI Ultra Plan will offer five times higher usage limits than the standard $20 Pro plan, as well as priority access to Google’s Antigravity coding tool and 20TB of cloud storage.
Meanwhile, down from its original $250 price tag, Google’s top-tier Ultra plan features 20 times higher usage limits and exclusive access to Project Genie — Google’s experimental research preview that lets you build interactive 3D worlds using real-world Google Street View imagery.
We dig further into a few more of the biggest announcements below.
— Mat Smith
Instead of subtle, normal-looking glasses with some smart features, Xreal’s smartglasses aim for an immersive AR experience, with a focus on entertainment. That approach is very much the same as the company’s Android XR-powered Project Aura, but based on Karissa Bell’s time with these new smartglasses, they may offer more than just another wearable screen.
Compared with the low-key (arguably lower-spec) audio-only smartglasses from Warby Parker and Gentle Monsters, Xreal’s Project Aura packs in three cameras, a 70-degree field of view and hand-gesture navigation. The main gesture is a pinching motion that will feel pretty familiar to anyone who has used other AR setups, such as Apple’s Vision Pro.
Speaking of which, Project Aura comes with a tethered puck, just like Apple’s wearable display. It comes with a trackpad and a fingerprint sensor, although neither worked on the demo model we tested. The company hasn’t revealed pricing details yet (expect those alongside the formal launch later this year), but they’re likely to exceed Xreal’s One Pro glasses, which cost $650.
Continue reading.
Gemini Omni is Google’s new gen-AI model that can “create anything from any input”. Gemini Omni Flash is rolling out now to the Gemini app, Google Flow and YouTube Shorts. It’s apparently the next evolution of Nano Banana and, presumably, its current video generator, Veo 3.1. It lets you “combine images, audio, video and text as input and generate high-quality videos grounded in Gemini’s real-world knowledge.”
Apparently, Omni also better understands physical forces such as gravity, kinetic energy and fluid dynamics, making scenes more realistic.
Announced on its investor day, Spotify is expanding a feature that enables users to generate “personal podcasts.” It announced this tool last month, with the option to use AI agents such as OpenClaw and Claude Code to whip up synthetic audio. The company says it’s adding a feature that lets users generate personal podcasts directly within Spotify. It notes that after you enter a prompt, it will generate audio that draws on factors such as your Spotify taste profile and world knowledge. You can also feed in text, PDFs and links to give the tool more context for what you’d like to hear about. Spotify says eligible Premium users in the US will get access to personal podcasts next month. The Roman Empire, Final Fantasy VII Remake and Liverpool FC, please. In under 30 seconds. Go.
Continue reading.
Meta has launched a new app called Forum. Social media consultant and analyst Matt Navarra spotted Forum in the App Store, where it is described as “a dedicated space for the conversations that matter most to you,” created specifically for Facebook Groups. As Navarra notes, Meta seems to be pushing the idea that the app can help users get “real answers” from “real people,” making it sound very similar to Reddit, offering an escape from the atrocious genAI search results we’ve all been suffering from recently. (Did we mention Google I/O was this week?)
Continue reading.
The consumer A/V industry keeps consolidating, and the headphone category is no longer watching from the cheap seats. Sony’s acquisition of Audeze made that clear in 2023, AXPONA changed ownership almost before the elevators at the Schaumburg Renaissance had recovered from the 2026 show, and now Fidelity Collective has acquired Westone Audio and Etymotic. That puts two of the most respected names in professional and enthusiast IEMs under one newly formed company, and it is another reminder that even niche audio brands with fiercely loyal followings are now very much in play.
This is where the story gets more interesting.
Most recent A/V industry acquisitions have followed a familiar pattern: one established company, investment group, or brand owner buying or partnering with another established player. This one appears to be different. Fidelity Collective is not an old name with a deep catalog of legacy brands. It is a newly formed holding company that seems to have been created specifically to bring Westone Audio and Etymotic under one roof.
Fidelity Collective is led by CEO Sam Roney, known for his work with Dekoni Audio and Grell Audio, and COO Tal Kocen. The deal was finalized on Friday, May 15, 2026, with both Westone Audio and Etymotic now operating under their leadership.
That distinction matters. This is not simply another large A/V company adding a respected audio brand to the shelf. It is a new entity built around two very specific names in the IEM and earphone categories. That suggests a more targeted play, and one that could have real consequences for professional audio users, hearing-health customers, musicians, and personal audio enthusiasts who have followed these brands for decades.
This strategic move opens a new chapter for Westone Audio and Etymotic, two brands with deep roots in in-ear audio, hearing protection, professional monitoring, and precision listening. Together, they represent decades of work in products used by touring musicians, audio professionals, hearing specialists, and serious listeners who care about what actually reaches their ears. Imagine that.
The new leadership team also brings direct familiarity with both brands, which matters. Tal Kocen previously worked with Westone Audio and Etymotic, while Gary Boyer will remain on board as EVP, providing some continuity as both companies move under the Fidelity Collective umbrella.
CEO Sam Roney also brings broader audio industry experience through his involvement with Dekoni Audio, Grell Audio, and Dark Matter Audio Labs. Combined, the leadership team appears to understand the history, product philosophies, and customer bases behind both Westone Audio and Etymotic. That does not guarantee success, but it is a better starting point than handing two specialist IEM brands to people who think “balanced armature” sounds like a yoga injury.
Westone Audio was founded in 1959 and has been a major influence in the development and manufacturing of custom in-ear monitors for musicians, with its background in hearing protection and acoustics helping shape products used on stage, in studios, and by serious listeners.
Etymotic, founded in 1983, is known for its research-led approach to hearing and sound. They helped define the category for high-isolation, precision in-ear listening, with products developed from a foundation in auditory research, diagnostics, and hearing protection. Its ER4SR and XR series became a reference point for accurate in-ear sound, while its wider product range continues to serve musicians, professionals, and listeners who value clarity and faithful sound reproduction. Etymotic’s hearing protection products are also widely recognized for providing solutions for one of the biggest frustrations with traditional earplugs by maintaining clarity and balance while simply reducing volume.
Under Fidelity Collective umbrella, Westone, and Etymotic will continue their research and product heritage. The company’s focus will be on maintaining the distinct identities and core values that made Westone Audio and Etymotic trusted names.
At the same time, the new group is expected to bring fresh energy, expanded R&D, renewed product development, and long-term investment into both brands and their passionate user base.
Fidelity Collective says the goal is not to abandon or reinvent what made the brands successful, but to build on their foundation with new momentum, modern innovation, and long-term vision across both professional and consumer audio categories.
“Westone Audio and Etymotic are brands with genuine history and credibility,” said Sam Roney, CEO of Fidelity Collective. “Tal and I share a vision of bringing startup-level energy to these epic legacy brands while fully respecting the heritage they’ve built over decades serving musicians, audio professionals, and hearing protection users.”
Tal Kocen, COO of Fidelity Collective, added: “For me, this is incredibly personal because these are brands I already know closely. There’s already a strong foundation here, and our role is to build on that with fresh ideas, modern product development, and long-term commitment to the communities around both brands.”
Fidelity Collective also confirmed that they will be investing in staffing, engineering, product development, and operational infrastructure as both brands move into this next phase, including the re-establishment of sales operations in Dallas and engineering and lab facilities in Chicago.
Both brands will continue serving existing users, including professional musicians, stage performers, engineers, hearing-conscious listeners, and music enthusiasts, while expanding into new product categories and market opportunities.
Further product announcements from both Westone Audio and Etymotic are expected in the coming months of 2026 and beyond.
Fidelity Collective’s acquisition of Westone Audio and Etymotic matters because it gives a newly formed company two established IEM brands at a time when wired earphones are clearly gaining momentum again.
Recent CanJam shows in New York, Singapore, and Dubai made that obvious, with brands like Noble, Shure, DUNU, Astell&Kern, Meze Audio, and Sennheiser fighting for the same serious listener. Westone brings professional IEM credibility, while Etymotic brings accuracy, isolation, and hearing-focused design.
What is missing are the details: new products, updated lineups, and how much engineering or distribution overlap we will actually see. But the intent is clear. Fidelity Collective is not entering the IEM market quietly. It now has two respected names, and the rest of the category should be paying attention.
While we wait to see what new initiatives and products result from these new company relationships, here are some currently available products from Westone and Etymotic.
Westone Audio Earphones
Etymotic Earphones
The Blackbird, built by the Drone Pro Hub duo, hit 730 km/h, or about 453.6 mph, during a downwind run on the second day of testing. Its return leg into heavy wind topped out at 640 km/h, giving the pair a two-way average of 685 km/h, or about 425.6 mph.
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