A Chinese state-linked hacking group compromised executive laptops at an agricultural industry conference on Hainan Island this spring — not through phishing or a network breach, but by breaking into hotel rooms and booting the machines from a USB stick while the executives were at dinner.
CrowdStrike, which tracks the group as OVERCAST PANDA, disclosed the campaign in its 2026 Threat Hunting Report and detailed the operation’s timeline in an interview with VentureBeat at Fal.Con 2026: an intruder entered one room at around 8 p.m. local time and a second room by 9:57 p.m., writing a backdoor called FlowCloud directly to each laptop’s storage before rebooting the machines and leaving. There was no network intrusion, no phishing email, and no credential stolen through a login page.
The report dates the intrusions to between March and May 2026, and the timestamps come from Adam Meyers, CrowdStrike’s senior vice president of counter adversary operations, who cleared them for publication in the VentureBeat interview. CrowdStrike’s OverWatch team disrupted the intrusions and assessed that OVERCAST PANDA will almost certainly continue. FlowCloud itself predates this campaign by years: Proofpoint documented it in 2020, delivered by phishing to U.S. utilities, and NTT Security’s SOC has tracked USB-delivered infections at overseas branches of Japanese organizations since early 2022.
Security researchers have called physical-access tampering with an unattended laptop an “evil maid attack,” since Joanna Rutkowska demonstrated one with a bootable USB stick in 2009. Physical-access operations are rare across the 290 named adversaries CrowdStrike tracks, according to Meyers, and MUSTANG PANDA‘s version depends on a dropped USB stick the victim plugs in. What Meyers identified as novel is the combination of hotel-room entry by a state intelligence service with malware deployment, booting the target machine from the USB rather than relying on a user to execute a file from it.
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When the executives powered on the next morning, the trigger fired and FlowCloud loaded. Keylogging, screen capture, file collection, and credential harvesting began.
“We have the visibility once the machine boots up,” Meyers told VentureBeat. A registry key or similar trigger starts FlowCloud sometime after the operating system loads, and that’s when Falcon’s sensor picks it up. The gap is the window between the USB write and the next boot — the hours the laptop sits compromised and undetected before the executive logs back in.
EDR needs the operating system loaded and the agent running. MFA waits for a login attempt, phishing training for an email, AI agent security for an agent to secure.
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OVERCAST PANDA bypassed all of them at the point of entry. The initial compromise completed below the running OS, below the EDR agent, below the authentication stack. Falcon caught FlowCloud once its process started after boot, but by then the implant and its trigger were already on disk.
“Hotel entry is a very common thing,” Meyers said. “Talk to any corporate physical security person. They’re generally aware of hotel entry, but I think what is unique is the combination of hotel entry with deployment of malware.”
Meyers said he thinks China’s Ministry of State Security sits behind OVERCAST PANDA. The people entering the rooms are either officers or agents of the MSS or the Ministry of Public Security, or hotel housekeeping staff the services have bribed or compelled, Meyers told VentureBeat. A separate mid-2026 intrusion targeted a U.S.-based media professional using the same tradecraft, according to the report. Targeting an agricultural conference aligns with collection priorities Meyers tied to China’s five-year plans.
What CrowdStrike announced at Fal.Con and where runtime security begins
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang joined George Kurtz on the Fal.Con stage to unveil SafeMind, an agentic cybersecurity system built on Nvidia Nemotron open models and CrowdStrike’s threat data. Meyers told the Fal.Con audience that 7,400 CVEs were registered in June 2026, a 96% increase over June 2025, and that CrowdStrike submitted 2,400 of them via responsible disclosure, roughly 30% of all CVEs registered that month.
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Falcon Guardian, the company’s runtime security layer for AI agents on the endpoint, went live the minute Kurtz put the slide up, CrowdStrike President Mike Sentonas told the Day 2 audience, and AI Gateway, listed as a Guardian capability, ships in September as a hosted service with a hybrid version to follow. AJ Shipley, CrowdStrike’s chief product officer, told VentureBeat that CrowdStrike will embed a SafeMind model into Guardian for malicious-prompt detection within the next couple of weeks.
The threats those products address are real, and the report quantifies them. AI agent-triggered detection leads grew at 2.5 times the rate of human-triggered leads, by OverWatch’s count. Cloud-conscious eCrime activity surged 171% over the reporting period. Vishing intrusions doubled in the first half of 2026 compared to the second half of 2025, with the eCrime group SNARKY SPIDER moving from account takeover to data exfiltration in under five minutes after compromising SSO-integrated SaaS applications.
Every one of those threats is network-based. All of them assume a running OS, an active user session, or a live cloud workload.
The controls that stop this are firmware and policy
“It’s a solvable problem,” Meyers said. “It’s just an inconvenient solution, which means that a lot of people don’t do it.”
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CrowdStrike itself has shipped firmware attack detection and BIOS settings auditing through the Falcon sensor since May 2019, including a Dell SafeBIOS integration that surfaces BIOS verification telemetry in the Falcon console. The ability to audit security-related BIOS settings on the laptops executives carry has sat inside the platform for seven years. Pointing it at travel devices is a decision, not a product gap.
The controls that would have blunted the OVERCAST PANDA campaign are old and cheap, and each does a different job. Disabling external boot in UEFI removes the vector. A BIOS administrator password keeps it disabled. Pre-boot authentication lets a foreign boot environment load and still keeps the encrypted volume unreadable until a human supplies the PIN or key. Firmware monitoring detects tampering after the fact.
“Don’t bring anything with you that you’re not comfortable with handing over to a foreign intelligence service,” Meyers advised. He used temporary laptops and email accounts on overseas trips while at CrowdStrike, wiping the device when he returned. The exposure starts at customs. Officials can seize a device and compel a login, he added.
“They have master keys to that stuff,” was his verdict on hotel safes.
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Why scale wins the priority fight
Intrusions tracked by CrowdStrike OverWatch grew about 4% over the reporting period, after a 27% rise the year before, a plateau CrowdStrike attributed to a shift toward more complex, resource-intensive campaigns. The OVERCAST PANDA hotel room operation is the example.
The network threat worries Meyers more. Asked to weigh OVERCAST PANDA’s hotel room campaign against the REVENANT SPIDER case he had shown on the Fal.Con stage, an eCrime group using AI to compromise 17 victims with custom web shells in 48 minutes, he picked REVENANT SPIDER.
“You can’t intrude on hotel rooms at scale,” he said. “You can’t intrude on physical devices at scale. And even then, it’s just one device.” The person in the room is the target, and the intrusion rarely pivots further, he added. “REVENANT SPIDER, they’re moving at that speed and they’re using AI across the board, and that’s a whole other threat, and I think that’s more concerning for the average enterprise.”
Network-speed, AI-powered intrusions scale. Physical-access tradecraft does not. Security budgets follow the threat that hits the most machines. The threat that is hardest to detect on one machine gets what is left.
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But the executives who attended an agricultural conference in China this spring were the specific targets of a state intelligence service, one that chose the slow, unscalable method precisely because it works where network-based attacks fail.
The conference itself is the threat model
Executives at conferences are the campaign’s targets, and runtime security starts only once the machine boots. The vendors filling the Las Vegas show floor this week were selling that same runtime protection to attendees whose own laptops carry the identical gap.
Organizational fracture is the real problem. Falcon Guardian ships to one team, and BIOS configuration on travel laptops belongs to another. The Agentic IdP rolls out under identity governance while the decision about whether executives carry production-access machines to international conferences sits with a different group. And the budget line that funds cloud-threat defense has nothing to do with travel-device policies.
Meyers has lived both sides. “I’ve talked to companies where they’re like, we’re having a board meeting in Shanghai, and I’m like, why would you do that?”
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What security leaders need to do before the next trip
Audit every executive laptop for USB boot status. If the device can be booted from USB right now, it has the same gap OVERCAST PANDA exploited this spring. The steps below cover Windows laptops, the platform FlowCloud targets.
Enforce full-disk encryption with pre-boot authentication. BitLocker in a TPM-only configuration is a documented weak point against physical access. SCRT researchers pulled the volume master key off the LPC bus with a $49 FPGA module in 2021, and Dolos Group did the same over SPI that year. OVERCAST PANDA wrote a backdoor and its post-boot trigger to the Windows volume, so the operators had write access to it. That points to machines that were either unencrypted or protected by a configuration the operators defeated. Pre-boot authentication with a PIN or USB key forces a human step before storage becomes readable.
Verify Secure Boot is enabled and the revocation list is current. Secure Boot validates signatures on boot components and blocks most unauthorized bootloaders, but it leaves external media bootable and signed shims can still carry a bypass. ESET published findings on 11 legacy Microsoft-signed UEFI shims in July 2026 that let untrusted code run at boot on any machine trusting Microsoft’s third-party certificate. Microsoft revoked them in its June 9, 2026 DBX update, so a laptop that skipped that update still trusts them. Lock the boot order at the UEFI level, disable one-time boot menus, and set a BIOS administrator password that covers both the setup utility and any boot-override key. Meyers’ read is that a lot of these settings go unchecked because the fix is inconvenient.
Issue travel-only devices for international conferences with no access to production systems, no saved credentials for internal tools, and no persistent VPN configuration.
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“If they can get their hands on it, they can own it,” Meyers put it, citing an old DEF CON adage. Falcon catches FlowCloud only after boot — the exposure is the hours between the USB write and the next login, while the laptop sits closed and compromised.
“It’s cheap to buy a couple of laptops and a couple of phones,” Meyers said. The controls that close that window are a handful of firmware settings and a spare laptop. The question is whether anyone has deployed them.
Iris Software Group’s research explored how more established employees are unwilling to train up less experienced peers who are on a similar salary.
Much is expected of employees in 2026, particularly in the wake of a working environment that has been transformed and reimagined multiple times since the introduction of AI and workplace automation.
Professionals are often expected to work across a range of teams, to hold a diverse yet specialised skillset and to undertake additional responsibilities, often for a salary that is not reflective of the work being carried out.
One such obligation often bestowed upon professionals is duties related to the training and support of younger or less experienced co-workers, often as a means of creating a consistent and in-house system of learning. It also means that if and when a professional moves on from the role, there is an equally qualified person ready to step into the position.
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This is the focus of new research conducted by Iris Software Group. On behalf of the organisation, Censuswide collected data from 511 UK-based senior HR professionals and 500 UK employees who have been in full-time work for between two and five years.
What was discovered is that 71pc of young professionals that have been employed for between two and five years find it difficult to feel motivated to train or help a new starter earning almost as much as them.
In scenarios where a young professional discovered what a new starter earns, 24pc said that it was the same as their own salary. Almost 40pc said that it was up to £1,000 less, while only 16pc said it was between £1,000 and £3,000 less. A further 16pc said that they had discovered new starters were being paid more than they were.
Commenting on the report, Stephanie Coward, the managing director for HCM at Iris, said: “It’s not surprising to see frustration building when young professionals are taking on harder work, more responsibility and helping train the next intake, but see almost no difference in their pay.
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“Businesses have faced genuine pressure to raise starting salaries, including increases to the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage. But this isn’t only being driven by forces outside employers’ control. HR professionals also pointed to internal issues such as salary bands not being reviewed regularly enough.”
Core concerns
Almost a third (32pc) of HR leaders who participated in the research admitted that the gap between young professionals and those who are just starting out has narrowed over the course of the last two years.
Among the factors noted by the report as having a part to play in pay compression are rising national minimum and living wages in the UK, as well as companies increasingly prioritising attractive starter salaries over pay rises for the existing staff.
The research also indicated that there is little positivity among HR leaders that this pay compression is going to improve. Almost half (46pc) of contributors explained that they expect salary bands to narrow further over the course of the next two years.
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Among the surveyed young professionals who learned what new starters were being paid in comparison to themselves, 69pc said it had left them feeling undervalued, frustrated or disappointed. Some were motivated to take action, as 16pc accepted a new job offer and a third requested a pay increase.
Moreover, despite 84pc of participating HR leaders concerned about the risk of losing the loyalty of young professionals who feel as though their pay does not reflect their additional responsibilities and experience compared to new recruits, only 20pc have plans to make targeted salary adjustments.
Coward said: “Compounding the problem, almost a quarter (23pc) of HR leaders said their current HR systems are not capable of comparing pay against changes in employees’ skills and responsibilities, making it harder to identify where pay compression is emerging and which employees are most affected.
“Most businesses won’t be able to solve this with blanket pay rises. But they do need to understand where compression is happening and where it risks costing them good people. A targeted salary increase may look expensive, but so is losing an experienced employee, recruiting their replacement and rebuilding the knowledge that walks out of the door with them.”
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Apple has reportedly scrapped plans for two new MacBook models, including a large foldable MacBook and a larger OLED model that would have sat above the current MacBook Pro lineup.
According to research firm Omdia, Apple has canceled development of a foldable MacBook that would have measured between 16.1 and 18 inches when unfolded. The device had previously been linked to a 2026 production window, although earlier reports had described it as a large foldable iPad rather than a MacBook.
Apple has also apparently dropped plans for a separate OLED MacBook measuring between 14.4 and 16.1 inches. This model would have occupied a new tier between the existing MacBook Pro sizes and the cancelled foldable MacBook. With both products seemingly off the roadmap, the 14.3- to 16.3-inch range will remain reserved for the MacBook Pro lineup.
That doesn’t mean Apple is backing away from OLED MacBooks altogether. Omdia says the company’s broader plan to bring OLED displays across its MacBook and iPad ranges remains intact, although Apple has reportedly changed which products will receive the technology and which OLED technology they’ll use.
Interestingly, Apple isn’t expected to immediately retire its existing mini-LED MacBook Pro models when the OLED versions arrive. Omdia says the two display technologies could remain on sale alongside each other for several years, with the mini-LED models potentially continuing until at least 2028.
For now, the foldable MacBook and larger OLED model appear to be out of Apple’s plans, but the company’s wider MacBook OLED push is still very much alive.
Most true wireless earbuds are fighting the same war: better ANC, clearer calls, longer battery life, smaller cases, and increasingly elaborate software designed to convince us that Bluetooth earbuds require an engineering degree to operate.
HiFiMAN has apparently decided the category needs more resistors.
The new $299 Svanar Wireless 2 takes a less conventional approach by retaining the discrete R-2R digital conversion architecture that distinguished the original $499 Svanar Wireless, while shrinking the circuitry and earbuds themselves. Bluetooth moves from version 5.2 to 6.0, the internal DAC has been redesigned, each earbud drops from 8 grams to 7.4 grams, and HiFiMAN is finally developing a dedicated mobile app.
That last one deserves some emphasis. Our review of the original Svanar Wireless praised its sound quality but found its lack of an app, middling ANC performance, limited battery life, bulky charging case and occasional wireless instability difficult to overlook at $499. HiFiMAN clearly had some homework to do.
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Svanar Wireless 2 does not abandon the company’s sound-first approach. Instead, HiFiMAN appears to be trying to make that architecture more practical and $200 less expensive.
Related Reviews:
What Makes Svanar Wireless 2 Different?
Most TWS earbuds rely heavily on highly integrated Bluetooth system-on-chip architectures that handle multiple stages of the signal path inside a compact package.
HiFiMAN does things differently.
The Svanar Wireless 2 uses the company’s new HYMALAYA Mini DAC, a dedicated R-2R digital-to-analog converter that keeps conversion separate from amplification. The signal then passes through an independent Class AB balanced amplifier, rather than combining DAC and amplifier functions into one integrated stage.
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An R-2R DAC uses a precision resistor ladder to convert digital information into an analog signal. Implementing that approach inside a battery-powered earbud presents an obvious challenge: space.
The original Svanar Wireless required a stacked two-PCB architecture to accommodate its DAC and amplification circuitry. According to HiFiMAN, the new HYMALAYA Mini uses twice as many resistors while occupying one-fifth the space of the previous implementation.
That smaller footprint is what allowed HiFiMAN to reduce the size and weight of the earbuds without removing the architecture that made the original Svanar Wireless unusual.
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Each earbud now weighs 7.4 grams, down from 8 grams on the original. That may not sound like a dramatic diet plan, but shaving weight and internal volume matters when the entire DAC, amplifier, Bluetooth receiver, battery, microphones and driver have to live inside something jammed into your ear canal.
Topology Diaphragm Returns
The DAC architecture might attract most of the attention, but it still needs something to turn the electrical signal into sound.
The company’s approach applies a nanoparticle coating to selected areas of the diaphragm in specific geometric patterns. HiFiMAN says varying those patterns, materials and thicknesses allows its engineers to alter the diaphragm’s behavior and better control how it produces sound.
This technology is not new to Svanar Wireless 2. HiFiMAN has been using variations of its Topology Diaphragm in wired IEMs and previous wireless models for years. The important point here is that the company has retained the combination of its proprietary dynamic-driver technology, R-2R conversion and dedicated amplification rather than simplifying the audio path to reach the lower price.
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HiFiMAN rates the frequency response at 10Hz to 35kHz, with onboard amplifier output specified at 45mW.
Bluetooth 6.0, LDAC and L2HC
Wireless connectivity has also received a meaningful update.
The original Svanar Wireless used Bluetooth 5.2. Svanar Wireless 2 moves to Bluetooth 6.0 and supports LDAC and L2HC for higher-resolution wireless transmission from compatible devices.
LDAC remains the more broadly relevant codec for Android users, although actual codec support always depends on the source device.
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HiFiMAN also specifies up to 35dB of active noise cancellation, along with an IPX5 rating for resistance to water and sweat.
That still leaves an important question.
HiFiMAN’s strength with the original Svanar Wireless was sound quality, not class-leading ANC. Bose, Sony, Technics and others have spent years refining adaptive noise cancellation, microphone arrays and environmental processing. A specification saying “35dB” does not tell us whether Svanar Wireless 2 has closed that experiential gap.
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We will need to hear it.
There’s Finally an App
The original Svanar Wireless launched without a dedicated control app, which was difficult to excuse on a $499 flagship wireless product.
HiFiMAN says that will change with the new HIFIMAN Mobile App, which is being developed to provide firmware updates, touch-control customization, EQ adjustment and other settings.
There is one caveat: HiFiMAN says the app will debut soon, so we would not describe it as an available feature until the company actually releases it.
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Still, adding proper software support is overdue. Firmware updates should not feel like an optional luxury on premium wireless earbuds in 2026.
Battery Life
This is one area where HiFiMAN still does not appear determined to win the numbers war.
Battery life is rated between four and eight hours per charge, depending on operating mode and usage. The charging case can fully recharge the earbuds three additional times before the case itself needs charging.
That represents some improvement at the upper end compared with the original model, which HiFiMAN rated for up to four hours in HiFi mode, six hours with ANC and seven hours in Transparency mode.
Those figures remain modest compared with some current $300 competitors, however. Sennheiser rates its MOMENTUM True Wireless 5 for up to 12 hours without ANC and 6 hours with ANC, while Technics rates the EAH-AZ100 for 10 hours with ANC when using AAC.
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Apparently even an R-2R DAC cannot repeal the laws of battery chemistry.
How Does It Compare?
The $299 price places the Svanar Wireless 2 directly in one of the most competitive parts of the TWS market.
Technics EAH-AZ100 — $299.99
The Technics EAH-AZ100 has been one of our favorites at the same price point. Its 10mm Magnetic Fluid Driver was derived from technology used in Technics’ EAH-TZ700 wired IEM and is designed to reduce driver distortion while delivering strong bass response and high-frequency detail. The AZ100 also offers adaptive ANC, LDAC, LC3, Dolby Atmos with head tracking, three-device multipoint connectivity and substantially longer battery life.
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Although, Technics offers more features, HiFiMAN is betting its less conventional R-2R DAC and separate Class AB amplification architecture will give a sonic edge.
Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 5 — $299.95
Sennheiser’s new MOMENTUM True Wireless 5 uses a 7mm TrueResponse dynamic driver and supports aptX Lossless, aptX Adaptive, Bluetooth 6.0, hybrid adaptive ANC and Dolby Atmos spatial audio. Sennheiser also offers four microphones per earbud, including a bone-conduction microphone, and rates total battery life at up to 40 hours with the charging case.
Sennheiser is leaning heavily into acoustic tuning, codecs, ANC, call quality and software integration. HiFiMAN is putting more emphasis on what happens inside the actual digital-to-analog signal path.
Noble Audio FoKus Rex5 — $449
The Noble Audio FoKus Rex5 costs considerably more at $449 but may be the strongest competitor for listeners whose first priority is sound quality rather than maximum noise cancellation.
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Noble packs five drivers into each earbud: one 10mm dynamic driver, three balanced-armature drivers and one planar magnetic driver. It also offers Bluetooth 5.4, multipoint connectivity and onboard storage for personalized EQ profiles.
Where HiFiMAN is using one sophisticated dynamic driver supported by unusual DAC and amplifier architecture, Noble attacks the problem with an elaborate multi-driver acoustic system.
Neither approach is remotely normal for mainstream TWS. That is precisely why both are interesting.
Svanar Wireless 2 Specifications:
Type: True wireless earbuds
Driver: 10mm dynamic driver with Topology Diaphragm
DAC: HYMALAYA Mini R-2R
Amplifier: Independent balanced Class AB
Amplifier Output: 45mW
Frequency Response: 10Hz to 35kHz
Bluetooth: Bluetooth 6.0
High-Resolution Codecs: LDAC, L2HC
ANC: Up to 35dB
Water Resistance: IPX5
Battery Life: Approximately 4 to 8 hours, depending on usage
Case Capacity: Three additional full earbud charges
Weight: 7.4 grams per earbud
App: HIFIMAN Mobile App announced; availability forthcoming
Price: $299
Availability: September 2026 through Amazon and the HiFiMAN online store
The Bottom Line
The original Svanar Wireless proved that HiFiMAN could make an unusually good-sounding TWS earbud. It also proved that great sound alone does not excuse every usability compromise when the asking price is $499.
Svanar Wireless 2 is interesting because HiFiMAN did not respond by turning it into another conventional Bluetooth earbud.
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Instead, the company shrank its R-2R DAC architecture, retained separate Class A/B amplification and its Topology Diaphragm driver, reduced the weight, upgraded connectivity to Bluetooth 6.0 and dropped the launch price to $299.
That price is especially aggressive considering the original Svanar Wireless launched for $499 and the previous Svanar Wireless LE already occupied the $299 slot. HiFiMAN is effectively asking the new flagship to compete where its reduced-cost model used to live.
There are still questions. Battery life is not class-leading, the new mobile app has yet to arrive, and a 35dB ANC specification does not tell us whether HiFiMAN has caught Technics, Sony or Bose in real-world noise cancellation.
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But $299 for a TWS design with a dedicated R-2R DAC, separate amplification and a 10mm Topology Diaphragm driver?
The wireless earbud category certainly did not need another anonymous pair of plastic blobs.
Automatic pet feeders aren’t new, but most are limited to dispensing dry food. Strolling a press preview ahead of IFA 2026 in Berlin, I spotted a wild new take on the handy pet parent helper, and it’s basically an Instant Pot for cats.
OK, maybe it doesn’t pressure cook, sauté and steam like most multicookers, but it does churn out fresh meals on demand for your feline friend. Like an Instant Pot, all you have to do is add two ingredients, set it and forget it.
The Best Tech, All Tested by CNET Editors
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Riko, the latest release from Neakasa, is a self-contained smart wet-food maker that prepares meals on demand (or whenever you schedule them via the app) and serves them to your cat at mealtime.
The unit, which is about the size of an average drip coffee maker, houses a compartment for freeze-dried food and a water reservoir. When activated, it rehydrates and mixes the cat food for a gourmet autonomous feeding experience.
As strange as it may sound, this one makes great sense for busy or forgetful owners of cats that prefer wet food. While it’s not advertised for dogs, we can’t see why this system wouldn’t work for small canines.
The Rika holds enough food for 7 days of meals.David Watsky/CNET
The Shenzhen-based brand is known for its self-cleaning litter boxes and automatic feeders. Until now, it didn’t have an answer for owners who feed their cats wet grub. Wet food feeders from other brands rely on refrigeration to keep preloaded meals cold until chow time, and most are limited to two or three meals. This is the first one we’ve seen that whips up your cat’s lunch in real time.
David lives in Brooklyn where he’s spent more than a decade covering all things edible, including meal kit services, food subscriptions, kitchen tools and cooking tips.
David earned his BA from Northeastern and has toiled in nearly every aspect of the food business, including as a line cook in Rhode Island where he once made a steak sandwich for Lamar Odom.
Right now he’s likely somewhere stress-testing a blender or tinkering with a toaster. Anything with sesame is his all-time favorite food this week.
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The late Steve McQueen built his name on unforgettable performances in films such as “Bullitt” and “The Great Escape,” among others. However, there was much more to the King of Cool than his screen work. He’s well known for his love of automobiles, too, with McQueen having owned several remarkably valuable vehicles throughout his lifetime. He owned less exotic fare, too, like this navy blue and silver 1942 Chevrolet pickup truck that’s now back on the road after nearly two decades in a garage, courtesy of Hagerty and its “Driveway Finds” YouTube series.
McQueen sold the truck in 1979, and the new owner used it as a normal pickup for years, largely ignoring the fact they purchased it from McQueen himself. It eventually sat in storage for 15 years, although that apparently didn’t do it that much harm: “Driveway Finds” hosts John Brito and Dustin Halinan found it was still in good shape for the most part, including the engine, brake system, and undercarriage.
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After a new master cylinder and some basic maintenance, the 84-year-old truck was back on the open road. It’s great to see it moving, too, considering the multiple layers of American history behind it.
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This ’42 Chevy pickup is a historic piece in multiple ways
This 1942 Chevy pickup is a notable piece of history in several ways. As mentioned, it was owned for some time by Steve McQueen, and the buyer — who paid a whopping $2,800 in 1979 — had the documentation to prove it. It’s not quite McQueen’s iconic 1968 “Bullitt” Mustang, but it’s still a fascinating piece tied directly to the Hollywood legend. This Chevy’s significance extends beyond McQueen, though, and it all goes back to WWII.
In the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States went all-in on World War II, prompting private companies within the country to get in on the war effort. Chevrolet was no exception, having prepared for wartime production even before the U.S. formally entered the conflict. General Motors put passenger vehicle production on the back burner between 1942 and 1945, with only a handful of 1942 model-year trucks hitting American streets before the January ’42 production stoppage.
These were incredibly similar to 1941 models with few changes, but they’ve earned a place in history for their WWII connection and low 1,641-unit production run — and this truck is one of those 1,641. So, not only is this an exceptionally rare truck, but it has a connection to Steve McQueen that cements it as a truly one-of-a-kind piece.
This 2,200-lumen work light has two lights, both of which can run in either high or low modes. Braun claims a three-hour runtime with both lights on high and 15 hours with both on low. If you only use one light, the company suggests you can expect 7 hours of runtime on high and 28 on low. Its foldable design makes it easier to store, but should also offer more versatility on the job. It runs on a rechargeable lithium battery that Braun claims will recharge in 3.5 hours. The light comes with a USB-A to USB-C charging cable.
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This is just one of several new Braun lighting products to hit the Harbor Freight inventory in 2026. The brand has a range of other new lights, all of which have different form factors and features to set them apart from each other.
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This is one of several new Braun lights
Braun has several new compact lights, such as the 500-lumen Rechargeable Portable Folding LED Work Light and the 750-lumen LED Portable Work Light with Rotating Handle/Stand. They cost $19.99 and $14.99, respectively, with the latter running on four AA batteries instead of a rechargeable battery. The 500-lumen light is magnetic for hands-free situations, runs around 14.5 hours in floodlight mode and 26 hours as a flashlight, and has a 90-foot range. Meanwhile, the 750-lumen light has a 180-degree adjustable handle, a roughly five-and-a-half-hour runtime, and an 80-foot range.
Beyond these, Braun also dropped two other work lights to consider. One is the 4,200-lumen LED Rechargeable Heavy Duty Clamp Light, which retails for a comparatively steep $49.99. This promises a 19-hour runtime, a 270-degree swivel head on its clamp base, and a 300-foot range on the highest of its three light settings. There’s also the $24.99 2,200-lumen Rechargeable Waterproof LED Spotlight, which, despite looking like it’s designed for handheld use, has a built-in adjustable stand so you can use it as a work light. Braun claims a 23-hour runtime, a 3-hour charge time for the lithium-ion battery, and a 1,300-foot range.
There are many budget-friendly worksite lighting options, including these Braun offerings. Perhaps one of these models, or even any of the other Harbor Freight lighting solutions for sale, could serve you well next time you have to work in low light.
A horror story of sorts is unfolding in the United States. It goes like this: AI has made it so effortless to access information, and short-form video has made it so easy to entertain ourselves, that nobody reads anymore.
If you’re familiar with this tale, it’s possible, ironically, that you read about it. A viral Atlantic story from earlier this summer put a chilling headline on trend: “The End of Reading Is Here.” Teachers and professors, the magazine reported, don’t even bother assigning entire books to their students, because excerpts are good enough to prepare for standardized texts. The piece said we’re living in a “postliterate era.”
This is a cultural crisis, yes — but for a lot of us, it’s a personal one. We’re all short on time, and we’d like to read more, but the ascendancy of attention-stealing tech companies has made it feel like we have less of it.
“Reading was and is a crime of opportunity,” said Leah Price, a professor of modern book history at Oxford and the author of What We Talk About When We Talk About Books. “The limiting factor isn’t reading matter, but reading time.”
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Reading is changing, not dying. The bigger problem is competition for people’s time and attention.
Print offers productive difficulty. E-readers and audiobooks make reading easier, but the friction of print promotes deeper comprehension.
Leisure reading should be fun! It’s totally fine to peek at the ending, skip boring parts, or just give up on boring books.
There are, I’m happy to say, some bright spots in this story — and some helpful news.
There’s evidence that reading isn’t over. It’s just changing. A 2025 Pew study found that the number of Americans who say they read books has remained roughly the same in recent years, although the way that they read them is changing. The vast majority of books read in the United States are print, but a growing number of people are reading e-books and listening to audiobooks. The number of print books sold is actually growing on the backs of the science fiction and self-help genres. The number of e-books and audiobooks borrowed from their local libraries, meanwhile, topped 820 million last year, a new record. There’s no shortage of books to read. And it’s never been easier to access any book you want in your preferred format.
The other bit of good news is useful to you: Reading is like a muscle. Even if you feel like your ability to pore over a book has atrophied, that muscle is still there, ready for exercise. The more you do read, the more your vocabulary improves, the more you learn, and the more you’re able to put new information in context. In other words, the more you read, the better you get at it. And probably as a result, the less appealing algorithmic feeds become.
It’s one of those personal habits that extends beyond your own life, too. Becoming a better reader is good for American society. The nation’s founders believed that an informed citizenry was necessary to preserve democracy — and to prevent tyranny. A nation of people passively flipping through 10-second videos on a smartphone or bedrotting with a streaming show can be informed in a sense. You might want to be a better American.
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The big question, then, is: How does one become a better reader in an era that increasingly appears to be postliterate? Actually, there are some interesting insights — and ironically, some technology — that can help.
One thing that keeps a lot of people from reading is simply friction. Reading can be hard — or at least effortful — for a lot of different reasons.
For me, I hit friction every time I pick up all 1,300 dense pages of The Power Broker by Robert Caro. It’s the weight of a doorstop in my hands, as I struggle with the context of mid-century New York bureaucratic history, ultimately unsure if I’ll live long enough to reach the end of the book. Reading is full of friction, and finding ways to reduce friction is one way to read better.
Technology is good at this. Just take the growth in e-book popularity as proof. Whereas people over 65 have historically read more than young people, more than 40 percent of young people have read an e-book in the past year, according to an April Pew study. You can’t blame them. Once you get used to the lack of pages and paper, e-readers are incredibly convenient. The classic Kindle Paperwhite is more portable than a doorstop, and you can keep an entire library on something the size of a side plate. It’s even waterproof, or at least more waterproof than paper. More advanced devices, like the Kobo Libre Colour, offer color e-ink displays and the ability to scribble on the page.
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What turned me into a Kindle enthusiast is the existence of Libby, an app that lets you check out e-books from your local library. From the comfort of the New York City subway, I can find, borrow, and download just about any book I’d ever want and start reading it in a matter of seconds. You might call this a frictionless experience. The raw simplicity of the device also means that I can’t easily navigate away from the book to check my email or start doomscrolling.
Audiobooks open up another avenue: the ability to read a book while doing something else, like chores or driving. You might disagree on whether listening to an audiobook counts as “reading,” but there’s evidence that people can comprehend and retain information from audiobooks equally as well as they can from printed material. Audiobooks can even make difficult language more accessible for more readers.
There are drawbacks, too. Audiobooks force you to listen at the speed of the narrator, although you can probably speed it up or slow it down in increments. And it’s difficult to go back and review the text or to skip ahead, which is also true for e-books. This spatial component of reading is something that printed books will always have going for them. Rereading text can improve comprehension, and the spatial nature of books makes it easier to find certain passages. Just think about that effortless feeling of flipping back toward the beginning of a book for that really juicy section. That’s not easy to do on a Kindle or with an e-book.
There’s an interesting paradox here: In order to become a better reader, you need to reduce enough friction that you read more. But you also need to preserve certain kinds of friction that help you fully appreciate what you’re reading.
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There’s a good reason your teachers and professors assigned hard books when you were in school. “Learning only happens when there is some cognitive friction, if you’re actually grappling with the ideas,” said Daniel Willingham, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia.
Reading difficult text, scribbling notes in the margins, rereading the difficult text, taking breaks to think about it — this friction-full process leads to deeper comprehension. Certain inconveniences that come with reading print books, including turning physical pages and navigating the spatial elements of the object, invite you to do the mental work that promotes learning. Screens, with their lack of friction, may actually make it harder to comprehend what you’re reading.
The advantage of print is small but meaningful. A 2018 meta-analysis of nearly two decades’ worth of studies showed that paper-based reading had a slight advantage to screen-based reading when it came to comprehension, especially when dealing with informational texts, rather than narratives. Another meta-analysis published a year later suggested that readers were more efficient when reading on paper and, interestingly, seemed to have a more accurate awareness of how well they understood the text. In other words, when you read on your phone, you might think you’re absorbing more than you actually are.
There are other drawbacks to reading on screens. Scrolling alone is bad for comprehension, according to yet another meta-analysis, because it basically forces us to lose our place on the page. There’s also beenresearch into how reading on screens demands more of our cognitive resources than reading on paper, perhaps because the technology requires the reader to process more information, leaving them with a little less gas in the tank to actually comprehend the text. But again, plenty of studies show that the difference in how well we comprehend information by reading on screens versus print is small.
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What’s perhaps more meaningful are the vibes we bring when we approach a medium. We’ve been trained to read on screens a certain way, according to Naomi Baron, a professor emerita of linguistics at American University. From the early days of Google, screens became places where we searched and scanned for information, quickly clicking through to the next page in pursuit of an answer. That’s a far cry from the millennia-old tradition of poring over printed manuscripts.
“We got used to thinking a digital device is that which one doesn’t concentrate on,” Baron said. “One keeps moving like a shark. … Print is a medium that encourages stopping.”
It turns out two things can be true. Indeed, keeping a smartphone next to you while you’re trying to read a book is an invitation to distraction. You may also feel like your attention span is already shredded, probably thanks to your smartphone. You just have to be more intentional about your attention and harness your focus. Taking breaks can help restore your attention stamina, especially if you do so in nature. Try reading a book for a few minutes every day, and you’ll soon find that you can read for longer. The next thing you know, you’ll have read a book.
Let’s not lose the plot here
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Some people read to learn. Others read because their job demands it. The luckiest of us read for fun. Some people read to escape or to imagine. And depending on your purpose, you might choose a different approach or device to stuff that text into your brain.
If you’re simply trying to become a better reader, it doesn’t matter how you do it.
You should keep reading, again, because reading more makes you better at reading. If you’re trying to learn, printed books can facilitate that, but you can also learn quite a bit by listening to an audiobook. If a Kindle and a library card can unlock all the hard sci-fi and fantasy your eyes could ever consume, go for it and enjoy.
Part of what keeps some people from reading, I have to imagine, is the preconception that reading needs to be difficult to be rewarding. And as many teachers and professors will point out to you, navigating your mind through the difficult text can be especially rewarding, since that friction leads to better comprehension and learning. Still, you don’t need to read everything like you’re trying to get a good grade.
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“There are no rules about leisure reading,” Willingham told me. “You can peek at the end. If you’re not enjoying a book, drop it. You can do whatever you want. The whole point is for you to have fun.”
You should read material that feels magnetic to you, that keeps you coming back for more. If reading is going to have any chance of competing with TikTok, it needs to be interesting and compelling, regardless of how literary or sophisticated you might think reading needs to be. You should read books, longform articles, and blog posts on whatever medium makes sense in that moment — and whatever medium makes it easy to keep reading.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to read the big difficult, doorstopper-sized classics, though, if that’s important to you. Just think twice about using AI to summarize what you’re reading. It’s tempting to ask ChatGPT why Anna Karenina is a classic — I just did, and ChatGPT says “psychological realism, moral complexity, continuing relevance” — but it’s not fun.
Using AI as a reading partner may help initial understanding of reading material, but old habits like note-taking better promote engagement and long-term comprehension. Pia Kreijkes, author of a study on this topic published earlier this year, is worried about young people leaning on AI to do more of the cognitive lifting that reading requires.
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“Given that children are already on a trajectory of declining reading frequency and enjoyment, and that reading skills are also declining, we should be very concerned about this,” Kreijkes said. “The more we use AI to reduce our reading effort, the more likely reading skills are to decline.”
After all, if the kids stop reading, there’s not a whole lot of hope for future generations to be readers of books. If we let technology remove too much friction from our pursuit of knowledge, we will lose the plot entirely and slide into the postliterate horror so many people are currently afraid of, AI-dominated dystopia and all. When you put it that way, though, this is also a great premise for a sci-fi novel.
For most people, birdwatching starts with a glance through a window. A flash of red near the feeder. A hummingbird hovering for a few seconds. A bird perched on a fence before disappearing into the trees. These moments are easy to miss, and even when we notice them, we may not know what we are looking at.
Birdfy is changing that dynamic by bringing technology into one of the most ordinary places for observing wildlife: the backyard. The company has now surpassed one million smart birding devices worldwide. In the U.S., its smart birding community is capturing bird activity across everyday residential spaces, creating a growing dataset on how birds interact with the places where people live. Instead of relying on a handful of traditional observation sites, Birdfy’s technology is recording bird activity from thousands of everyday residential spaces. The resulting data offers a different way to look at how birds interact with the places where people live, and how people are responding to those encounters.
The new Birdfy U.S. Birdwatching Insights Report 2026: A Million Devices, One Portrait of Nature examines that activity through the company’s U.S. smart birding community. It is not intended to replace professional ecological surveys. Instead, Birdfy describes it as a portrait of birdwatching behavior and everyday nature observation, built from what its devices record.
And the portrait is surprisingly large. Over the past year, Birdfy says its network completed approximately 2.1 billion AI bird identifications, equivalent to about 66 bird visits recorded every second. Those observations are not happening exclusively in national parks or remote wilderness. They are taking place in the backyards, gardens, balconies, and feeding spots of ordinary households.
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That scale is beginning to reveal patterns that can be difficult to see from a single backyard.
A growing network of observation points reveals how busy nature really is
One of the most striking findings in the report is how much bird activity happens before most people have even started their day. At around 6 AM, Birdfy recorded more than 63.2 million bird visits. The report says detections rose from fewer than 14 million by 5 AM to roughly 63.2 million by 6 AM, representing more than a fourfold increase in a single hour.
The activity does not stop there. Across the day, Birdfy’s data shows backyard visits rising around dawn, peaking between 7 AM and noon, with 8 AM emerging as the busiest hour. Activity then declines through the afternoon and falls sharply after 7 PM, with very little activity late at night.
Birdfy Hum FeederBirdfy
In other words, the backyard has its own daily rhythm. Different species follow different schedules within that rhythm. The report notes, for example, that House Finches are most active around 10 AM, Black-capped Chickadees around 2 PM, and Dark-eyed Juncos as early as 7 AM. Northern Cardinals appear both early and late, with the report identifying them as a particularly persistent presence throughout the day.
These patterns are interesting precisely because they come from places where people may not think of themselves as conducting nature observation. Birdfy’s devices are effectively creating a growing network of small observation points. Each one sees only what happens in its own backyard, but collectively, those observations begin to form a broader picture.
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The same principle applies geographically.
The report identifies a clear dividing line around the Rocky Mountains. East of the Rockies, across 19 states, the Northern Cardinal is the dominant familiar backyard bird, while west of the Rockies, the House Finch takes that position across another 19 states. The report attributes these differences to factors including climate, vegetation, and bird behavior.
The hummingbird data reveals another geographic pattern. East of the Rockies, the Ruby-throated Hummingbird accounts for 61.6% of hummingbird identifications, while western backyards show greater variety, including Anna’s, Allen’s, Rufous, and Costa’s hummingbirds.
Technology is not creating these differences. It is making them easier to see at scale.
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The surprising birds are closer than we think
One of the most compelling ideas in Birdfy’s report is that discovering unusual wildlife does not necessarily require traveling into remote habitats.
Sometimes, it just requires looking more closely at home. Birdfy’s identification system has a library covering more than 6,000 species, while more than 1,000 species have actually been identified through its real-world data. That distinction matters. The library represents what the system is capable of recognizing, while the 1,000-plus figure represents species that have genuinely appeared in the platform’s recorded observations.
The report’s hummingbird data provides an especially striking example. Across more than 20 million hummingbird identifications, Birdfy recorded 17 species beyond the three most common hummingbirds. Among them were the Broad-billed Hummingbird, Berylline Hummingbird, and Lucifer Hummingbird, species described in the report as rare visitors in the areas where they were recorded. These observations came from ordinary backyard feeders rather than nature reserves.
Birdfy Hum Feeder Duo | Birdfy Bath ProBirdfy
That changes the way a backyard can be perceived. For someone who does not consider themselves a birdwatcher, an unidentified bird can be just another visitor. AI identification can put a name to it. The report describes this as a progression from “that red bird” to a Northern Cardinal, for example. Once an unfamiliar bird has a name, the barrier to learning more about it becomes smaller.
This accessibility is important because birdwatching is already a much larger part of American life than its reputation as a niche hobby might suggest. The report cites U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service research estimating that 96 million Americans watch birds, including approximately 91 million who do so at home or nearby. Backyard birding has therefore become an everyday activity for millions of people, not something reserved for dedicated birders equipped with binoculars and field guides.
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Birdfy’s technology fits into that existing behavior by reducing some of the knowledge required to get started. You do not necessarily need to know the name of a bird before you can become interested in it.
From seeing a bird to sharing it
The most interesting part of Birdfy’s data may not be the birds themselves. It may be what people do after they see them. Birdfy users shared more than 2 million bird photos and videos, while the volume of sharing increased by 227%, or more than threefold.
That behavior suggests that backyard birding is becoming increasingly social. A person who sees something unusual does not necessarily keep the moment to themselves. They may save it, show a family member, or share it with someone else. Birdfy describes these as small “come look at this” moments, turning a private observation into something that can be experienced collectively.
The report also points to another layer of engagement. Birdfy says users spend close to 20 minutes in total viewing bird imagery through its Moments section. Combined with identification and sharing activity, the company sees a behavioral progression from recognizing a bird to returning to watch it and eventually sharing it with others.
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Birdfy Bath ProBirdfy
That progression is central to Birdfy’s larger argument. Technology can make nature easier to notice, but the bigger impact may come from what happens after someone notices it.
The report describes a progression from access to awareness, awareness to attachment, and attachment to action. It is difficult to measure something as personal as caring, but the repeated behaviors in the data provide one indication that users are spending more time engaging with what is happening outside their homes.
There is also an important social and environmental context to that engagement.
North America has lost an estimated 3 billion birds since 1970, according to research cited in the report. At the same time, public participation in bird observation has grown, with platforms such as eBird contributing more than a billion observations to conservation research. Birdfy positions backyard observation as another way people can become more aware of the wildlife around them.
The idea is simple: people are more likely to care about something they have learned to recognize and notice.
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A different future for nature observation
Birdfy’s million-device milestone ultimately points toward something larger than smart bird feeders. It suggests that technology can change where nature observation happens and who gets to participate. Traditional wildlife observation often requires expertise, equipment, travel, or access to particular locations. A connected camera placed in a backyard changes that equation. The observation point is already there, and AI can help interpret what the camera sees.
But Birdfy is careful about what its data can and cannot demonstrate.
The company’s dataset reflects observations from Birdfy devices and therefore does not constitute a comprehensive census of wild bird populations. Device distribution varies between regions, different products attract different species and behaviors, and areas with more devices can naturally generate more observations. The report explicitly says its data should not replace field surveys or peer-reviewed research.
The company also acknowledges limitations in AI recognition. The system performs better with common species and clear images, while recognition can become less reliable with juveniles, unusual plumage, regional variations, poor lighting, or difficult viewing angles. Rare or unusual records may receive additional manual review.
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Those limitations do not necessarily diminish the value of the dataset. They define what it is. Birdfy’s report is not claiming that a million devices can replace professional ecological monitoring. Instead, it offers a large-scale look at what happens when ordinary people have the ability to observe wildlife continuously in the places where they live.
That may be the more important shift. Birdfy has also tied this growing community to conservation through the Birdfy Fund, which receives $1 from every device sold. According to the report, the fund has raised $1 million, partnered with 14 conservation organizations, and supported 64 projects across 17 U.S. states. Its initiatives include conservation grants, research partnerships, bird-friendly backyard education, and community support.
The result is a feedback loop: technology makes birds easier to see, identification makes them easier to understand, sharing makes the experience more social, and greater awareness can create more opportunities for people to engage with conservation.
More than one million Birdfy devices sold globally therefore represent more than a sales milestone. They reflect a growing community of people choosing to pay closer attention to the wildlife around them. And when those individual moments are brought together, the picture becomes much larger. The data shows when birds arrive, where different species appear, how unusual visitors can turn up in ordinary yards, and how people increasingly choose to save and share those encounters.
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Nature was never absent from our backyards. Birdfy’s data suggests that we are simply getting better at noticing it. Read the full Birdfy U.S. Birdwatching Insights Report 2026 here.
Note: Birdfy’s report states that its data reflects the company’s device user base and should be understood as a portrait of birdwatching behavior, not a comprehensive ecological census. Its statistical periods and methodologies vary by metric, with some early cumulative figures estimated from historical averages.
It looks like Apple has plans to make a splashy entrance in the smart home and security segment. Back in 2024, industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo wrote that Apple was prepping its foray into the smart home IP camera market. A year later, Bloomberg reported that Apple had started work on a home security camera code-named J450. Now, the outlet reports that the company will also launch a home security service to go with its camera, something all major players in the domain currently offer.
“Apple is planning a privacy-centric home security camera and automation device that will use AI to monitor the surrounding environment instead of actual video footage. It will tap into a new home security and monitoring service,” says a new report by Bloomberg.
Why could privacy be Apple’s main selling point?
The move isn’t surprising. In fact, given Apple’s market appeal as the more privacy-friendly name in the pool of tech giants, it just might make the rumored service a preferred choice among customers. Of course, seamless integration with Apple’s vast network of consumer devices — and the planned wall-mounted smart home tablet — will potentially make it the most cohesive choice on the market.
Google
The planned home security and monitoring service will put Apple in direct competition with the likes of Google and Amazon’s Ring, both of which offer multi-tier home security services and subscriptions to go with their smart doorbells and security cameras. Even the likes of Arlo and SimpliSafe offer their own monitoring plans and subscription-based services with extra perks.
The ecosystem is already in place
Apple already has a product that is ready to integrate services tied to smart home and security devices. That service is Apple One, which already combines benefits tied to other Apple products such as iCloud for storage, Apple Arcade for games, Apple TV, and Apple Music, among others. As far as the planned hardware goes, Bloomberg claims that Apple’s security camera will come with facial detection capability and will also come equipped with an infrared camera.
Wireless headphones have spent the past decade becoming smarter, more convenient and considerably harder to repair. Batteries are usually sealed inside, ear pads eventually deteriorate, and too many otherwise functional headphones become disposable once one critical component wears out.
That is starting to change. A small but important group of manufacturers is putting greater emphasis on replaceable batteries, removable ear pads and serviceable components, and beyerdynamic is leaning directly into that idea with the new AVENTHO Y.
Introduced at IFA 2026 for $149.99, the closed-back wireless over-ear headphone offers active noise cancellation, Bluetooth 6.0 multipoint connectivity, 45mm dynamic drivers, app-based EQ and up to 90 hours of battery life. None of those features alone makes it unusual, but beyerdynamic has taken a different approach to durability and long-term ownership that deserves more attention.
What Makes the AVENTHO Y Different?
Wireless headphones eventually develop the same problem as every other rechargeable product: batteries wear out. On many models, that can turn an otherwise perfectly functional headphone into electronic waste or an expensive repair project.
Beyerdynamic has designed the AVENTHO Y with a user-replaceable battery, magnetic interchangeable ear pads, aluminum sliders and stainless-steel hinges. The company also offers optional black or gray velour ear pads, while an upgrade package adds a low-latency USB-C dongle and detachable boom microphone. An integrated compartment inside the earcup can store the optional dongle or a spare battery.
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That modular approach is probably the AVENTHO Y’s strongest differentiator. The optional dongle and microphone also broaden its usefulness beyond commuting and music listening, giving owners the ability to configure it for gaming, video calls or work without purchasing a separate headset.
ANC, Bluetooth 6.0 and 45mm Drivers
The AVENTHO Y uses 45mm dynamic drivers in a closed-back, foldable over-ear design with a specified frequency response of 20 Hz to 20 kHz. Active noise cancellation is joined by a Transparency mode, while two integrated microphones use environmental noise cancellation to reduce background noise during calls.
Bluetooth 6.0 supports multipoint connectivity and a claimed range of up to 20 meters. The beyerdynamic app provides firmware updates, adjustable controls and a 5-band equalizer, allowing users to alter the headphone’s tonal balance rather than being locked into the factory tuning.
There is one specification worth examining more closely. The AVENTHO Y supports SBC and AAC, but beyerdynamic does not list aptX, aptX Adaptive, aptX Lossless or LDAC. Bluetooth 6.0 is the current version of the wireless standard, but the version number should not be confused with automatic support for higher-bitrate Bluetooth audio codecs.
Battery Life Should Be a Major Selling Point
Beyerdynamic rates the AVENTHO Y for up to 90 hours of playback with ANC switched off and up to 60 hours with ANC active. A full charge takes approximately one hour, while five minutes of fast charging can provide up to six additional hours of playback.
Those figures put it near the top of the category, although Audio-Technica’s ATH-S300BT essentially matches them with up to 90 hours without ANC and 60 hours with it. The Audio-Technica requires approximately 2.5 hours for a full charge, however, versus one hour for the beyerdynamic.
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The AVENTHO Y weighs 316 grams, which is worth considering for anyone planning to wear it throughout the workday or on long flights. Beyerdynamic is offering four finishes: Liquid Black, Blue Fusion, Soft Jade and Peach Blush.
Plenty of Competition at $150
The AVENTHO Y is entering a much tougher part of the wireless headphone market than its $149.99 price might suggest. Final’s UX3000 SV sells for the same $149.99 and takes a more sound-focused approach, combining custom 40mm drivers with hybrid ANC, multipoint connectivity and support for aptX and aptX HD. Battery life is considerably shorter at 35 hours without ANC and 25 hours with it, but Final has built much of its reputation around tuning rather than winning the specification-sheet contest.
The new EarFun Wave Pro X may be an even more direct threat. Originally shown at CES 2026 and priced at $129.99, it uses a dual-driver configuration with 40mm DLC and 10mm LCP drivers, Bluetooth 6.0 and an unusually comprehensive codec package that includes aptX Adaptive, aptX Lossless, LDAC and LE Audio. Auracast, multipoint connectivity, hybrid ANC, an eight-microphone call system and up to 90 hours of battery life make the absence of anything beyond SBC and AAC on the AVENTHO Y considerably more noticeable.
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Nothing’s 2026 Headphone (a) sits slightly higher at a $199 MSRP, although Nothing is currently selling it for $159 in the U.S. It offers adaptive ANC, LDAC, USB-C and 3.5mm wired playback, an 8-band EQ and a remarkable claimed 135 hours of playback without ANC or 75 hours with it engaged. At 310 grams, it is also very close to the 316-gram beyerdynamic, making the comparison considerably more relevant than the lightweight Sony WH-CH720N.
What the AVENTHO Y has that none of those models can match as a complete package is its emphasis on long-term ownership. The user-replaceable battery, magnetic ear pads, stainless-steel hinges and optional low-latency dongle and boom microphone give it an upgrade and repair path that most wireless headphones still lack. That is a stronger reason to consider the beyerdynamic than Bluetooth 6.0 or another hour-counting exercise.
Key Specifications
Type: Wireless closed-back over-ear
Drivers: 45mm dynamic
Frequency response: 20 Hz to 20 kHz
ANC: Yes
Transparency mode: Yes
Bluetooth: 6.0 with multipoint
Codecs: SBC, AAC
Wireless range: Up to 20 meters
Battery life with ANC: Up to 60 hours
Battery life without ANC: Up to 90 hours
Charging time: Approximately 1 hour
Fast charging: 5 minutes for up to 6 hours
EQ: 5-band via beyerdynamic app
Battery: User replaceable
Ear pads: Magnetic and interchangeable
Weight: 316 grams
Colors: Liquid Black, Blue Fusion, Soft Jade, Peach Blush
Price: $149.99
Pricing & Availability
The beyerdynamic AVENTHO Y is priced at $149.99 in the United States and will be sold through beyerdynamic.com and Amazon.
At that price, the replaceable battery might matter more than another Bluetooth codec or marketing feature. Wireless headphones have become better and considerably more affordable, but relatively few are designed around the idea that owners might still want to use them after the original battery has reached the end of its useful life. Beyerdynamic appears to have noticed that problem, and the AVENTHO Y offers a rather sensible solution.
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