One of the biggest roadblocks for adding countertop appliances to your kitchen is storage. For folks with a small kitchen, myself included, the struggle often looks like a constant shuffle, trading one appliance for another in the pantry. This problem is less noticeable in larger kitchens, but you might end up with more clutter than you’d like.

Eventually, you need to decide if you’ll use an appliance often enough to justify getting it. In my case, I’m much more likely to choose a multipurpose product like an Instant Pot pressure cooker or an air fryer. Perhaps this is why I was excited to test out the Ninja CrushBoss, which combines a large blender, food processor and small smoothie blender into a single device. I spent the two weeks using a sample unit from Ninja in my kitchen, and I’m eager to share my thoughts. 

Four appliances in one. Well, kind of

CrushBoss isn’t Ninja’s first attempt at an all-in-one kitchen system, as the Ninja Detect, Ninja Professional Plus and Ninja Foodi Power Blender all attempt similar feats. What sets Ninja CrushBoss apart are the PrecisionDice and MultiBlade Disc attachments for the food processor bowl, plus a better smoothie tumbler design than previous models.

Similarly, the blender’s preset programs change depending on which vessel you attach to the 1850-watt base motor, with each program running automatically to achieve the desired results. You can rotate the outer ring of the small LCD screen to choose your setting, then make the final selection by pressing the top of the screen inward to click. It’s not a touchscreen, but it’s easy enough to use once you learn the controls.

There isn’t much that’s special about the large blender pitcher, which uses largely the same design as other standalone Ninja blenders. It comes with a single blade assembly and presets for mincing, small chopping and large chopping. The smoothie tumbler is similarly simple, with its small blade assembly supporting ice crushing, blending and smoothie presets. Compared to older tumblers, the Travel Tumbler’s main upgrade is a better carrying handle, flip-top lid and a large smoothie straw — it’s more like a Stanley cup than a NutriBullet personal blender.

Last, but not least, is the food processor, which has the most accessories, including a chopping blade, dough blade, MultiBlade Disc and the PrecisionDice assembly. Where the Ninja Detect’s food processor included reversible stainless steel discs, the MultiBlade attachment is largely plastic, with specific inserts depending on the model you choose. The model I tested came with inserts for thick slices, crinkle-cut slices and shredding — Ninja also sells inserts for thin slices, french fries and julienning.

I call it a kind of four-in-one appliance because the smoothie tumbler’s main benefits are, naturally, smoother blending consistency than the large pitcher and greater travel portability with the included lid and smoothie straw. You can still use the large pitcher for family-size smoothies and anything too big for the other two vessels, so adding a blending function to each vessel is largely superfluous. Similarly, the dicing kit is hardly an appliance on its own, since you’ll see it on other food processor brands like KitchenAid and Breville.

How useful is the Ninja CrushBoss?

Of the three vessels, I spent the most time with the food processor. I used the PrecisionDice attachment to prepare a fruit salad, which went very smoothly and had no issues with mango, watermelon, strawberries and pineapple. I pureed some blackberries with the food processor’s chopping blade to add more texture to the salad, though the smoothie attachment was ultimately a better option for crushing the blackberry seeds.

Next, I swapped the dicing attachment for the MultiBlade and sliced potatoes and cucumbers with the normal and crinkle-cut attachments. Again, the results were very good. Things were a little less consistent when I processed carrots and cabbage with the shredder for a quick coleslaw, as some bits of each remained unprocessed between the blade and lid. The amount of unprocessed vegetables was minimal, so I tossed them into a bowl of ramen instead of manually chopping them for the coleslaw.

To give the food processor a proper workout, I brought out the cheddar cheese, which I put through the shredder, slicer and dicer. As you might suspect, the cheese worked best with the shredder, with very little waste and no clogs. The other two attachments are less suitable for cheese, with the slicing disc producing passable slices. However, I clogged the dicing tool when I tried to make cheese cubes. I ultimately succeeded with some tiny cubes, but I don’t recommend it. 

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While I didn’t use the dough blade attachment much, it seemed good for mixing bread dough into a state where I could knead it by hand. I ran three cycles using the dough preset — though I admit the last cycle was because I forgot to add an ingredient. One reason I finished by hand was that I could hear the motor straining a bit toward the end of the second and third cycles.

I suspect the CrushBoss can handle the job, as the manual says it can hold up to 2 pounds of dough and shut off if necessary, but it took only a minute of hand-kneading after processing to reach the consistency I wanted. My advice: Listen to your machine and avoid tasks that trigger the auto-shutoff too often. Fortunately, my testing didn’t surface any problems with the system’s durability.

Beyond the food processor bowl, little stood out about the blender pitcher and smoothie tumbler attachments. Each did well with various levels of blending, pureeing and ice crushing, but nothing so outstanding that my ancient Oster blender couldn’t also do. The biggest advantages over my modest blender are the pitcher’s size — even if it’s more than I need in my kitchen — and the tumbler’s portability. Ninja says CrushBoss isn’t suitable for hot blending, so you can’t safely use it with hot liquids.

The challenge of modular kitchen systems like Ninja CrushBoss

Although I’m happy that I don’t have to store three motorized bases for separate specialty appliances, all of Ninja’s vessels and attachments are bulky enough that they’d take up an entire shelf in my kitchen cabinets. There’s not really a safe way to store the extremely sharp food processor discs, so I ultimately kept them in a carrying case for a massage gun I threw out ages ago. Fortunately, you can safely store the largest blender blade assemblies in each vessel.

The other challenge is that while all of the attachments are dishwasher-safe, that only applies to the top rack. My older dishwasher’s top rack isn’t adjustable, so I can’t fit any of the vessels inside and I have to wash them all by hand. This isn’t a problem I experience with the glass jar of my Oster blender, or the slightly smaller vessel of the Tribest Backspin I tested in 2025. At least the other parts fit, which made cleanup much more manageable.

My point in calling these out isn’t to discourage anyone interested in the CrushBoss, but to note that storage space and dishwasher space still matter before you buy.

Should you buy the Ninja CrushBoss?

As I used the Ninja CrushBoss 4-in-1, I kept coming back to one central question: “Who is this for?” Ultimately, it’s a harder question to answer than I thought. I have no problem recommending each function separately — blending, smoothies, dicing and food processing — because it seems to do all of these well enough.

For example, this particular setup should work well for two types of households: large families and meal preppers. I grew up in a large family, and having an appliance to prepare a huge amount of ingredients for every meal is a no-brainer. Another group that might benefit is the meal-prepper, regardless of household size.

Still, selling everything together in a single kit is excessive for someone like me, who has a small apartment. I have plenty of travel cups for smoothies and rarely need to process large amounts of food. Ninja thankfully offers various CrushBoss configurations and will most likely sell the attachments separately down the line, like with its older products. Personally, I’d love a configuration with only a large pitcher and food processor — I don’t need a smoothie tumbler.

At $320, the Ninja CrushBoss 4-in-1 costs about what you’d pay for separate Ninja appliances, but it is pricier than previous generations of Ninja’s modular kitchen systems, even without the dicing kit. This is a drop in the bucket compared to getting similar attachments for a Vitamix Ascent X. Despite my personal reservations, I think the Ninja CrushBoss 4-in-1 is a great idea, especially for folks looking to consolidate multiple specialty appliances into a single modular system. It taps into the reason why people love the classic KitchenAid stand mixer, and that’s a good thing.

John Carlsen has more than a decade of experience testing and reviewing home tech products, with a major focus on smart home security. He earned his BS in journalism from Utah Valley University. In addition to his CNET contributions, John has written for Android Police, TWICE, Home Theater Review, SafeWise, ASecureLife and Top Ten Reviews.

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Anthropic will spend $11.6 billion over seven years on Akamai’s cloud infrastructure, Akamai said Thursday. That’s more than six times the size of a $1.8 billion deal between the two companies that Bloomberg reported in May. The commitment isn’t ironclad; according to Akamai’s securities filing, it depends on Akamai meeting certain delivery and service-availability requirements, and either company can end the agreement under certain conditions.

The deal is the largest in Akamai’s history and continues Anthropic’s compute gobbling-streak. It also represents a bet on a less-hyped corner of AI infrastructure: CPUs. Demand for CPUs, the general-purpose chips that handle work like running code and browsing the web, has grown as AI agents take on more tasks, though Akamai didn’t say what Anthropic will use them for. 

Akamai won’t see revenue from the deal this year. On an investor call Thursday, executives said they expect $150 million to $300 million in 2027, starting in the second half, with revenue reaching an annual pace of about $1.7 billion by the end of 2028. 

To build out the capacity, Akamai expects to spend about $5.5 billion. It is also adding about $1.7 billion to this year’s capital spending to buy components such as memory in advance. 

As part of the deal, Akamai issued Anthropic a warrant, essentially the right to buy shares at a set price, for nonvoting preferred stock convertible into 7.7 million common shares, or up to about 5% of the company’s outstanding stock, at $111.33 a share. About 2% is expected to vest, or become available to Anthropic once it makes its first payment under the deal. The rest is tied to Anthropic spending more. Each additional $3 billion it commits to Akamai’s cloud services unlocks roughly another 1%, so the deal could grow by as much as $9 billion, to about $20 billion in total.

It’s the first time Akamai has attached a warrant to a cloud deal, and the contract is the largest in company history, Bloomberg reported.

The warrant flips the more common pattern in circular AI deals, in which suppliers — chipmakers and cloud providers — invest directly in the AI labs that buy their products. Here, the supplier is instead giving its customer a potential stake, one that grows as Anthropic’s spending with Akamai does. AMD used a similar structure with OpenAI last year, tying warrants to chip-purchase milestones. 

Anthropic is no stranger to such arrangements. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and AMD have all invested or agreed to invest in the company while selling it chips or cloud capacity. CEO Dario Amodei told The New York Times last December that Anthropic does not participate in these deals at the “same scale as some other players.”

Akamai shares rose as much as 17% in after-hours trading on Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Dr Maria Alhajji discusses her energy storage research and the Sophia Project, a physics outreach initiative at UL that engages school students.

Researchers and scientists can draw their inspirations and motivations from many sources. For Dr Maria Alhajji of University of Limerick (UL), the connection between theory and reality is fascinating.

“I am inspired by the moment when someone connects a scientific concept with something they have already observed in everyday life,” she tells SiliconRepublic.com.

As an assistant professor in the physics department of the Faculty of Science and Engineering at UL, she sees her field as “a way of understanding the world – from why the sky appears blue to how electricity, communications, medical technologies and renewable-energy systems work”.

Her role combines teaching, research, undergraduate and postgraduate student supervision and academic service, and contributing to departmental education and outreach initiatives.

“I am particularly passionate about helping students and young people see that physics is not simply a collection of equations,” she says.

“Whether I am teaching first-year students or investigating materials for energy-storage systems, I want people to recognise physics as an active and evolving discipline that shapes our everyday lives.”

Alhajji holds a BSc from Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal University, as well as an MSc and PhD from UL, where she previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher and research fellow.

With an academic background in electrochemistry and energy-storage materials, she now teaches across areas including mechanics, electromagnetism, semiconductor devices, electronics, modern physics and materials analysis.

“I was drawn to electrochemical energy storage because it brings together physics, chemistry, materials science and engineering,” she explains.

“It allows us to study processes occurring at atomic and microscopic scales while addressing one of society’s most urgent challenges: the transition to secure, reliable and sustainable energy.”

Energy solutions for the future

For Alhajji, modern society’s embrace of renewable energy can’t be limited simply to generating electricity from wind or solar; that power also needs to be stored effectively and viably so that it “remains available when the wind is not blowing, the sun is not shining or demand on the grid is particularly high”.

Her scientific research focuses on understanding how the properties of an electrode influence the reactions taking place at its surface and how these learnings can be applied to battery design for use in grid-scale energy storage.

Redox-flow batteries are an energy solution that, according to Alhajji, can be designed for long-duration operation, scaled to suit large installations and maintained differently from conventional sealed batteries.

These qualities, among others, make them ideal for stationary applications that demand consistent and reliable power, according to US industry body Battery Council International, which notes that their unique design – by separating energy storage from power generation – provides flexibility and durability.

Alhajji notes that that while wider deployment of such batteries depends on improving their performance, durability and cost, the principles underpinning them can be applied when considering other electrochemical technologies.

“My broader aim is to establish a clear relationship between a material’s structure, surface chemistry and electrochemical function,” she says.

“I find interfaces particularly fascinating. The performance of an entire battery can depend on reactions taking place across an extremely thin boundary between an electrode and an electrolyte. Small changes at that interface can have a measurable effect on the efficiency and lifetime of the full system.”

The connection between fundamental understanding and technological, real-world impact is a continuous source of motivation for her.

“This understanding can guide the rational design of energy-storage materials that support faster, more reversible reactions while remaining efficient and stable over long-term use.

“I am interested not only in how well an energy-storage system performs, but also in the fundamental physical and chemical processes responsible for that performance.”

She cites iron-based energy storage systems as a promising avenue worth exploring due to that metal being “widely available and potentially more economical than many materials used in current battery technologies”, which could lead to progress in developing energy-storage systems that are efficient, durable, scalable and based on more sustainable materials.

Young scientists

Alhajji’s passion for her field is represented not only in her researching and testing of energy production and storage solutions, but in her attitude to teaching and trying to inspire future generations.

Over the summer, she coordinated UL’s annual Sophia Project physics competition, run by her department and involving more than 70 primary-school children from Cork and Limerick.

“Sophia is a physics outreach initiative at UL that engages schools through interactive workshops, demonstrations and a schools’ physics competition,” she explains. “I have been involved in developing and delivering the workshops and in leading the competition element of the programme.

“The workshops use accessible, hands-on experiments connected to familiar experiences. Pupils might explore static electricity, air pressure or siphoning, or discuss questions such as why the sky is blue.

“Rather than simply showing an experiment and providing the answer, we encourage pupils to predict what will happen, observe the result and develop their own explanation.”

She says that the broader goal of the initiative is to build young people’s confidence and curiosity in science while developing their creativity, teamwork and problem-solving skills, and that schools and teachers have praised its ability to create and maintain interest among participating children.

She acknowledges, too, that teachers themselves can have significant influence in these types of initiatives.

“By supporting teachers and developing engaging activities that can be used in the classroom, we can reach many more young people and build a lasting culture of curiosity, creativity and problem-solving.”

Stay curious

For those starting out on a scientific career journey, Alhajji offers some words of wisdom.

“A career in science is not about always knowing the correct answer. It is about learning how to investigate a question carefully, evaluate evidence and continue when an experiment does not behave as expected. Unexpected results are often where the most interesting research begins.

“Stay curious and never be afraid to ask what appears to be a simple question. Many important scientific discoveries begin with someone questioning something that others have taken for granted.”

She acknowledges the need for a strong foundation in the likes of physics and maths, but notes that softer skills – such as communication, teamwork and practical problem-solving – should not be overlooked.

“Modern scientific research is highly collaborative and often brings together people from several different disciplines,” Alhajji notes.

And she stresses, also, the importance of keeping an open mind – advice which perhaps might be heeded regardless of one’s age, academic status or specific career journey.

“You do not need to have your entire career planned from the beginning. Curiosity is often the best place to start.”

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Meta has spent years trying to convince consumers that putting cameras on their faces is perfectly normal. With the new Ray-Ban Meta Audio, it is trying something refreshingly different: removing the camera entirely, which also means the person sitting across from you no longer has to wonder whether they are being recorded.

For a lot of people, that alone may be the feature that finally makes smart glasses feel less creepy.

Announced at Meta Connect 2026, Ray-Ban Meta Audio combines open-ear speakers, six microphones, Meta AI and conventional prescription-compatible eyewear in a 43-gram frame. Prices start at $349, preorders are open now, and shipments begin October 13, 2026.

That makes them Meta’s first audio-only glasses, although not the first product to try the concept. The more interesting question is whether Ray-Ban styling, Meta’s AI ecosystem and substantially longer battery life can make audio glasses relevant again after Bose, Amazon and smaller competitors spent years poking at the category.

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Ray-Ban Meta Audio uses two open-ear speakers positioned in the temples and a six-microphone array for calls and voice commands. Meta claims the microphone system can capture the wearer’s voice more clearly than earbuds, while the open design keeps the ear canal unobstructed for greater situational awareness.

Removing the camera does more than avoid having strangers wonder whether dinner is being livestreamed to Instagram. It allows Meta and Ray-Ban to make the frames lighter and extend battery life to up to 12 hours, compared with nine hours for the camera-equipped Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3. The included charging case adds up to another 48 hours, according to Meta.

There is a tradeoff. Without a camera, Ray-Ban Meta Audio cannot use Meta’s multimodal AI features that analyze what the wearer is looking at, and Live AI visual interaction is unavailable. Voice-based Meta AI, text translation, live translation, music, podcasts, messaging and calls remain available.

That may be enough for a lot of people.

Meta also unveiled its much more ambitious Meta VR Glasses at Connect, but the two products share little beyond being worn on your face.

Meta VR Glasses weigh about 100 grams, use dual micro-OLED displays with 2412 x 2288 pixels per eye, support Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, and rely on eye tracking and hand gestures for navigation. A tethered compute puck contains the Snapdragon Reality Elite processor, storage and battery, with up to three hours of high-resolution media playback. They arrive in spring 2027 for $1,299.99.

Those are portable VR computers designed for movies, gaming, spatial workspaces and immersive sports. Ray-Ban Meta Audio is essentially an open-ear audio wearable and AI interface disguised as normal glasses.

One replaces much of what a VR headset does. The other wants you to leave your earbuds at home.

Ray-Ban’s advantage is the eyewear side of the equation. The Meta Audio lineup launches with Clubmaster and Burbank frames in 23 lens and color combinations, including clear, tinted, polarized and Transitions options, with support for a wide range of prescriptions.

People might actually want to wear them, which is apparently still an important feature for glasses.

• Type: Audio-only AI smart glasses
• Weight: 43 g
• Audio: Dual open-ear speakers
• Microphones: 6-mic array
• Battery Life: Up to 12 hours
• Charging Case: Up to 48 additional hours
• Wireless: Bluetooth 5.3, Wi-Fi 6
• Water Resistance: IPX4
• Frames: Clubmaster, Burbank
• Lens Options: Clear, tinted, polarized, Transitions and prescription
• AI: Meta AI with voice interaction and translation
• Camera: None

The Bottom Line

Ray-Ban Meta Audio may prove more interesting than Meta’s camera-equipped glasses precisely because it does less. There is no camera, no display and no attempt to turn every walk to the deli into a mixed-reality demonstration.

What remains is open-ear audio, calls, AI assistance and translation built into glasses that weigh 43 grams and can potentially last through an entire day. For listeners who like the awareness of open-ear earbuds but already wear glasses, that combination makes considerably more sense than adding another device around their ears.

The only irony is that Meta may have made its most socially acceptable smart glasses by making them slightly less smart.

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Welcome to Kernel Panic! A weekly newsletter by Lily Hay Newman and Matt Burgess from inside the new world of privacy and digital security. To receive this newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up here.

When every random text message feels like it’s a scam, and with AI supercharging digital fraud, old-time credit card skimmers and bogus letters that arrive in the mail may seem laughable as potential threats in 2026. But as we all suffer through a seemingly unending barrage of potential scams, these antiquated attacks are still costing victims around the world dearly.

The fake-new-credit-card-in-your-mailbox trick is particularly insidious. Portugal, France, and Germany have all had waves of physical credit card scams in recent years where criminals have mailed phony replacement cards or letters to potential victims. Included letters often claim a current card is set to expire soon, whether the victim actually has one that’s about to expire or not. In order for the new (fake) card to be activated, the scam letter says, it should be registered using an included QR code or URL. Some sham cards even have real customer names printed on them, says Georg Hauer, an advisor for digital banks. “The card is almost like a token that creates the trust that is needed in order to fall for the actual trick,” he says.

If someone scans the QR code, they’re typically redirected to a fake banking website, where they’re asked to enter their details—potentially giving cybercriminals direct access to their real accounts. “This has been escalating for close to two years, and I believe that this type of scam might have proven to be successful enough to be rolled out in other countries,” Hauer says. “The cost of producing a personalized fake card has dropped in recent years thanks to AI just being able to copy a design based on an image, and the higher conversion rate per victim might justify the extra costs.”

Mail scams aren’t the only ’90s throwback on the docket. The US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Alabama indicted two Romanian nationals last week on charges related to alleged credit card skimming. Authorities say the pair specifically targeted government SNAP food assistance benefits distributed to recipients in most states on antiquated magnetic stripe-only debit cards, or Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards.

Fraud related to chip credit cards does exist as well, but this recent case serves as a reminder that classic skimmers targeting magnetic stripe credit cards are still deployed by scammers because there’s apparently still enough swiping going on to make it worth their while. The FBI says that EBT card skimming has risen in popularity among scammers since about 2021.

“Skimmer fraud is rampant with losses in the United States alone reaching over $1 billion each year,” US Attorney Phillip W. Williams Jr. said in a press release about the recent indictment. (That billion dollars includes multiple types of credit card skimming, not just EBT targeting.) “It is a silent insidious theft that occurs by merely swiping a credit card at a point of sale.”

Gary Warner, the director of intelligence at the cybersecurity firm DarkTower points out that dozens of states continue to use mag-stripe only cards for benefits purposes. “The risk here is that if the mag stripe is compromised, a clone of the card can be created and access not only the current value, but future value as well,” he says.

More broadly, Warner tells us, there are still multiple risks related to making payments using the magnetic stripes on any cards—even if they also include more secure chips that have been issued over the last decade-plus. “Non-bank ATMs and smaller non-chain merchants may expose your chip-enabled card to mag stripe reading,” Warner says. “Mag-stripe skimmers are often installed in such a way that the chip read is forced to fail.”