The AirTag 2 works as advertised with easy setup and the excellent Find My network, and this updated model has a louder speaker and improved Precision Finding range – two features that make it an overall better tracker than before.
The speaker is a lot louder
Improved range
Lasts for a year on a battery
Shape makes it difficult to fit in some places
More colours would be nice
Needs an attachnent to fit on keys
Key Features
Review Price: £29
Battery Life
Lasts for about a year with a coin cell battery
Works with Find My
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Everything is done through the Find My app
Personalisation
Engraving can be added when bought from Apple
Introduction
The AirTag 2, like its predecessor, is arguably Apple’s most basic product. But depending on how it’s used, also one of the most important.
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This tiny Bluetooth tracker, available as a single unit ($29/£29) or in a pack of four ($99/£99), can be attached to keys, left inside luggage or put in a rucksack. It can then be tracked, via Bluetooth LE or Apple’s extensive Find My network, very accurately.
If you’re prone to leaving bags in pubs or losing keys down the back of a sofa, this is an easy-to-recommend add-on to one of the best iPhones.
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Design
Simple design in a single white colour option
Slightly bulbous, so it doesn’t fit inside a wallet
Works for all the accessories from the first-gen product
The AirTag 2 looks exactly like the first-gen model, aside from some slight tweaks to the text on the back.
The dimensions are the same, and the overall slightly bulbous, rounded shape is retained. This does mean that, unlike some flatter trackers, you can’t really pop the AirTag into a wallet or something similar. I would like to see Apple experiment with some different form factors, possibly alongside this traditional one – just to add that extra bit of versatility.
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The AirTag 2 is marginally heavier, although even holding them both together, I couldn’t tell this, as it’s very light to begin with. When the tag is tucked away in a bag or attached to a set of keys, it’s not heavy enough to be noticeable.
It’s still made of a mixture of white glossy plastic and aluminium, which gives it a very Apple look. If you remember the iconic iPod – especially the original model – the colour choices are very similar here. It would have been nice to see some other colour options, perhaps similar to the hues the iPhone 17 series is available in.
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Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
I’ve had the first-gen AirTag on my keys since launch, and it’s certainly taken a battering. The silver aluminium side gets scratched very easily, especially when it’s jangling around with keys in a pocket or bag, and I doubt it’ll be any different here. Plastic alternatives, like Samsung’s Galaxy Smart Tag, look worse, but at least they hold up better.
The AirTag 2 is IP67-rated for dust and water protection, and the bottom can be twisted and removed to get at the CR2032 coin cell battery. There’s no way to recharge the AirTag, you just swap out the battery when it’s finished.
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Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
As it’s the same design as the outgoing model, all the same accessories work. Accessories are vital for the AirTag, as if you want to attach one to your keys or luggage, you’ll need one. If you’re just slipping it inside a bag, you’ll be fine without anything additional.
Features and Performance
Replaceable battery
Improved range
Loud speaker
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There isn’t a whole lot new with the AirTag 2, but what is new is most welcome. The key upgrades revolve around Precision Finding and the speaker performance.
The internal speaker is much better this time around, and as a result, it can make a much louder noise. This is especially noticeable when the AirTag is lost inside a bag or in bedsheets, as it can be heard from further away. It’s a nice upgrade, although not a reason in itself to upgrade.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
Inside, there’s an upgraded UWB (ultra wideband) chip that improves the Precision Finding skills of the tag and this means you can locate it from further away. To test this out, I took both an AirTag and AirTag 2, connected to an iPhone Air and then walked away. The original AirTag lost connection at about 15m, while AirTag 2 didn’t lose it until around 23m. In practice, this upgrade makes the AirTag 2 much easier to find around the house.
Setting up an AirTag is easy. Just bring it close to an iPhone, and it’ll add itself to the Find My app. This app is where all the tag’s features live, from playing a sound to tracking it down if lost. Of course, it’s iOS only – so these are of no use if you live in the Android ecosystem.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
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You can now locate your AirTag with Precision Finding on an Apple Watch, and this works much like it does on the phone. When you lose the AirTag further away, you’ll make use of the excellent Find My network to try and track it down. This uses Bluetooth LE, so you can track items even without data.
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The AirTag 2 is powered by a CR2032 coin cell battery. These last for about a year until they need to be replaced, are cheap and readily available from Amazon and supermarkets.
You can’t charge the AirTag – when it dies, you just twist off the base and swap out the cells. This is both good and bad. It’s good because you don’t need to worry about battery life, just have a few spare batteries around and every year, change it when you get an alert. However, I can’t help but think having a solution that allowed the battery to be wirelessly charged, ideally via MagSafe, would be sleeker.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
I’d also like a way to be able to turn off the AirTag without removing the battery, as some of the ones I use – those in stored luggage, for example – don’t always need to be on.
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Should you buy it?
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You’re a forgetful iOS user
The AirTag 2 is an easy recommdation to go with an iPhone. It’s affordable, handy and easy to use.
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You’re not fully in the Apple ecosystem
if you’re not all-in on Apple, you might be better off with a tracker that works better across ecosystems, like a model from Tile.
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Final Thoughts
The AirTag 2 is a handy tool and one of the more affordable accessories for an iPhone. It works as advertised with easy setup and the excellent Find My network, and this updated model has a louder speaker and improved Precision Finding range – two features that make it an overall better tracker than before.
It’s not a revolution though, and there are still aspects of the AirTag that I wish Apple had altered. The shape isn’t ideal for all situations; you need accessories to attach it to a set of keys, and the use of a replaceable battery is a double-edged sword. It’s easy to swap out, yes, and lasts for about a year, but popping it on a MagSafe stand to give it an extra lease of life would’ve been preferable.
FAQs
Which phones does the improved Precision Finding feature work on?
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Expanded Precision Finding works with AirTag (2nd generation) paired with iPhone Air or iPhone 15 or later (excluding iPhone 16e)
Which Apple Watch models work with Precision Finding?
Precision Finding on Apple Watch requires an Apple Watch Series 9 or later, or Apple Watch Ultra 2 or later, with watchOS 26.2.1
Longtime Slashdot reader ArchieBunker shares a report from NBC News: NASA revealed that astronaut Mike Fincke was the crew member who suffered a medical incident at the International Space Station in January, which prompted the agency to carry out the first evacuation due to a medical issue in the space station’s 25-year history. The rare decision to cut a mission short and bring Fincke and three other crew members home early made for a dramatic week in space early this year.
In a statement released by NASA “at the request of Fincke,” the veteran astronaut said he experienced a medical event on Jan. 7 “that required immediate attention” from his space station crew members. “Thanks to their quick response and the guidance of our NASA flight surgeons, my status quickly stabilized,” Fincke, 58, said in the statement. […] In his statement, Fincke thanked his Crew-11 colleagues, along with NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, who were also aboard the space station at the time and are still in space. Fincke also thanked the teams at NASA, SpaceX and the medical professionals at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla. “Their professionalism and dedication ensured a positive outcome,” he said.
Fincke ended his statement by saying he is “doing very well” and still actively involved with standard post-flight reconditioning at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “Spaceflight is an incredible privilege, and sometimes it reminds us just how human we are,” he said. “Thank you for all your support.”
Apple TV is doing great in Brazil, but services chief Eddy Cue says Apple doesn’t have any plans for new content developed in the country.
Apple’s SVP of services, Eddy Cue, says Brazil is Apple TV’s fastest-growing market.
During a special press event on February 4, Apple previewed content coming to its streaming service in 2026, with several new films and series set to debut on Apple TV later in the year. However, we didn’t hear much about Apple’s international streaming-related endeavors — until now. Apple’s Senior Vice President of Services, Eddy Cue, revealed a few key details about the future of Apple TV in an interview with the Brazilian publication Folha de Sao Paulo, spotted by 9to5mac. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
This marks the seventh co-founder exit since xAI was founded in 2023.
Toby Pohlen is the latest co-founder to leave xAI, announcing his decision to resign just weeks after two others left.
The Elon Musk-owned xAI lost three co-founder in the weeks after his space-tech company SpaceX bought xAI for a reported $250bn. The combined business is worth an estimated $1.25trn, and could gain more after a planned initial public offering this year.
In a post on X, Pohlen thanked Elon Musk for taking him on board. “I’ve learnt more about execution, speed, and product perfectionism than I could ever have imagined. Thanks for everything,” he said. Musk responded, “Thanks for helping get xAI to where it is.”
Pohlen is the seventh co-founder to exit xAI in three years, following Jimmy Ba and Tony Wu, who left earlier this month. Kyle Kosic left in 2024, followed by Igor Babuschkin and Christian Szegedy in 2025.
Greg Yang, another co-founder, announced last month that he would be stepping down after being diagnosed with Lyme disease. Pohlen had worked in Google DeepMind as a research engineer for more than six years before founding xAI.
The flurry of exits leaves behind Musk, Manuel Kroiss, Zihang Dai, Guodong Zhang and Ross Nordeen at the company.
Meanwhile, a year-long inquiry by French authorities has expanded to probe Grok’s possible role in disseminating Holocaust denials and sexual deepfakes. California also launched a similar investigation into X and Grok’s parent company xAI last month.
In this week’s roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Ben is joined by Casey Newton, founder and editor of Platformer and co-host of Hard Fork, a podcast that makes sense of the rapidly changing world of tech. Together, they discuss:
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Play along with Ctrl-Alt-Speech’s 2026 Bingo Card and get in touch if you win!
Bellevue, Wash.-based startup Union.ai announced that it closed a $38.1 million Series A round, led by NEA, with participation from Nava Ventures and new investor Mozilla Ventures. The total includes a previously announced $19.1 million portion raised in 2023.
Union is the company behind Flyte, an open-source orchestration tool used to run complex machine learning and data workflows. Union is positioning itself as broader “AI development infrastructure” — covering orchestration as well as pieces such as training, inference, and observability — aimed at helping engineering teams move from experimentation to production faster.
“Building AI requires a fundamentally different approach than traditional software, and engineering teams are now embracing that,” CEO Ketan Umare said in a statement.
This funding comes at an inflection point for AI: engineering teams are discovering that legacy software infrastructure and devtools struggle to handle AI development. They were designed for basic and deterministic processes of traditional data workflows, not for the non-deterministic processes of AI workflows, which expect agents to adapt and recover from failure at runtime. Union.ai is building the new category of AI development infrastructure. Engineering teams can develop dynamic, durable AI workflows and agents while dramatically reducing time spent maintaining brittle pipelines.
The startup says revenue grew 3X in 2025, and its customer base expanded 2.6X. Union’s customers include Spotify, HederaDx, Carfax, Hopper, and others.
The company says the round supports the commercial launch of Union 2.0 and continued development of Flyte 2, including “pure Python” authoring, improved debugging, runtime decision-making, and crash-resilient workflows.
Umare helped develop the underlying technology for Flyte while he was an engineer at Lyft. He previously worked at Amazon and Oracle. He co-founded Union.ai in 2020 with Haytham Abuelfutuh.
The company has more than 40 employees and is actively hiring.
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Investors are backing various startups building behind-the-scenes infrastructure to help companies turn AI prototypes into reliable products. Temporal, a “durable execution” company rooted in the Seattle region, announced a $300 million round last week.
Hair loss isn’t always dramatic. It can be incremental. You start noticing a bit more scalp in harsh bathroom lighting; a tiny bald spot when you tie your hair up in a ponytail. The shower drain is more clogged than usual. Not long ago, hair loss treatments meant topical remedies, supplements, or a flight to Turkey. Luckily, red light therapy brings the potential for hair regrowth into your home—no clinical appointment required.
Beyond skin rejuvenation, research suggests red light therapy can help energize hair follicles, increase blood circulation in the scalp, reduce inflammation, and lower dihydrotestosterone levels—a hormone that causes hair loss and thinning. Red light therapy also supports adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production, which helps provide oxygen and blood flow to the scalp and triggers follicles to remain in the hair growth phase.
To determine the best red light therapy for hair growth, I tapped three WIRED tech reviewers who’ve dealt with hair loss themselves. We assessed red light therapy caps, hands-free helmets with full scalp coverage, and low-level laser therapy or photobiomodulation devices for 16 weeks. Along the way, we reviewed the research, spoke with dermatologists, and tracked ease of use. These are the favorites that produced meaningful results and earned our trust.
Simple device with only one button and a charging port
Bluetooth-enabled so you can listen to your own tunes during treatment
Comes with a stand for easy storage
Observed new hair on scalp after 12-ish weeks
TIRED
Need to use daily for at least four months to achieve results, and use regularly (nearly every day) for maintenance
Even the smallest helmet size is large
Buffer cups can snag and pull hair during helmet removal
Ear cups can be somewhat difficult to adjust while worn
CurrentBody’s LED Hair Growth Helmet is a wearable, cord-free, Bluetooth-enabled device aimed at improving hair’s density, thickness, and overall condition. Each panel on the helmet has 12 red lights (120 total), which are on a spectrum of 620 to 660 nanometers (nm). The 620-nm red light helps improve scalp health by promoting circulation, and the 660-nm red light penetrates deeper, reaching through the epidermis and dermis to the hypodermis, where it stimulates growth and repair at the follicle root. According to CurrentBody, you only need to use the device for 10 minutes a day, and you’ll see results within 12 weeks.
My hair grows famously slow. I got a pixie cut in the spring of 2011, and my hair did not touch my shoulders until the end of 2013. My hair is also super fine. It tangles easily and often breaks off (my ends are chronically dry and split). After 12 weeks, I didn’t notice a huge difference in length (and I got a haircut halfway through testing), but I did notice that my hair seemed to be sprouting new follicles along my scalp and sideburn area in particular. I started to see small baby hairs along my hairline that I had never seen before. My stylist commented that my hair felt thicker, and I noticed less breakage and hair caught in bristles when brushing. My balding roommate also tested it (although not daily like me) and said that his hair felt thicker and that there was new growth around the scalp.
The helmet comes in two sizes: medium for a skull circumference of 21.3 to 23.2 inches, or large, for 23.3 to 25 inches. (I opted for medium, and it was too large for my head size.) The device sits on a base and is charged via a USB-C cord. It takes about three hours to fully charge, and it stays on a single charge for about a week. The device is powered on by the press of the single button located under the charging port. The circular earmuffs protect sensitive ears with a cushy, removable faux leather cloth, and they can be adjusted several inches up or down to ensure a comfortable fit. The screen on the right earmuff indicates the time left in the treatment session, and the helmet automatically turns off when the 10 minutes are up. You can also connect the device to Bluetooth and play any type of music or video while wearing it, because God forbid I be left alone with my thoughts for 10 minutes a day. Just make sure your hair is clean and dry before use.
My only complaints are that the ear covers aren’t the easiest to adjust while wearing and would oftentimes pull out my hair while I removed or adjusted the helmet. Nevertheless, this is the best red light therapy for hair growth. Just you wait, I’ll look like Fabio on the cover of a romance novel by next year. See full review here. —Molly Higgins
sciencehabit quotes a report from Science Magazine: For decades, planetary scientists have pored over a mystery hidden within the Moon rocks retrieved by Apollo astronauts in the 1960s and ’70s. Minerals in the rocks record the imprint of a magnetic field, nearly as powerful as Earth’s, that existed more than 3.5 billion years ago and seemed to persist for millions of years. But generating a magnetic field requires a dynamo — a churning, molten core — and most researchers believed the Moon’s tiny core would have long since cooled off, 1 billion years after it formed. Corroborating that picture are other ancient Moon rocks of about the same age that suggest the field was weak — leaving planetary scientists baffled.
Now, researchers are proposing a new way to solve the puzzle. A paper published today in Nature Geoscience theorizes that between 3.5 billion and 4 billion years ago, blobs of titanium-rich magma melted episodically just above the core, rising in plumes that drove volcanic eruptions on the surface. By intermittently stirring up the Moon’s core, these bouts of melting would have caused the Moon’s magnetic field to flicker on in short, powerful bursts. The paper “links a few different concepts that people were thinking about separately, but hadn’t actually brought together,” says Sonia Tikoo, a planetary geophysicist at Stanford University who was not involved in the study.
The modern web browser is now far more than a thing for rendering web pages, it’s a multi-faceted environment that can provide a home for almost any application you could imagine. But why should JavaScript or Wasm have all the fun? CSS is Turing complete now, right? Why not, as [Lyra Rebane] has done, write an 8086 emulator in pure CSS?
The web page at the link above may contain an 8086, but missing MMU aside, don’t expect it to run Linux just yet. Instead it has limited resources, just enough to run a demo program. It needs a Chrome-adjacent browser because it uses some CSS functions not available in for example Firefox, but we’ll forgive it that oddity. Its clock is provided by a small piece of JavaScript not because CSS can’t provide one, but because the JS version is more stable.
On one hand this is of little practical use, but to dismiss it as such is to entirely miss the point. It’s in the fine spirit of experimentation, and we love it. Perhaps a better way to look at it is to see what could be done more efficiently with the same idea. A 1970s CISC microprocessor might not be the best choice, but would for example a minimalist and optimized RISC design be more capable? We’re looking forward to where others take this thread.
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It’s not the first unexpected computing environment we’ve found, who could forget the DOOM calculator!
French professional football club Olympique de Marseille has confirmed a cyberattack after a threat actor claimed on Monday that it breached the club’s systems earlier this month.
Founded 126 years ago, Olympique Marseille competes in the Ligue 1, the top tier of the French football league system, and was the first French club to win the UEFA Champions League in 1993.
On Tuesday, Olympique Marseille issued a statement confirming that it had been hit by a cyberattack, following claims by a threat actor that they had breached some of its servers.
The threat actor has also leaked a sample of the allegedly stolen information on a hacking forum, claiming to have stolen a database containing Olympique Marseille staff and supporter information.
“Olympique de Marseille has announced that it was recently the target of an attempted cyberattack, in a national and international context marked by a resurgence of attacks targeting large organizations,” the football club said.
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“Thanks to the immediate mobilization of our technical teams and specialized service providers, the situation was quickly brought under control. To date, all our activities are continuing as normal and in complete security, and we are continuing our investigations into the scope of the incident. The club would like to reassure its supporters that no banking details or passwords have been compromised.”
While Olympique Marseille didn’t provide further details about the incident, the threat actor says the stolen database contains information on 400,000 individuals, including their names, addresses, order information, email addresses, and mobile phone numbers.
Olympique de Marseille entry on hacking forum (BleepingComputer)
They added that the allegedly stolen data also includes information on more than 2,050 Drupal CMS accounts, including 34 OM staff and 1,770 contributors and moderators.
“Today I am selling Olympique de Marseille (OM) dump from feb 2026, iconic french football club in Ligue 1, online boutique for merch, fan memberships, massive supporter base in france and worldwide,” the threat actor said.
Although Olympique Marseille has yet to confirm a data breach, it reported the incident to the French data protection authority (CNIL), filed a complaint, and advised fans to “remain vigilant against phishing attempts, and report any suspicious activity.”
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An Olympique Marseille spokesperson was not immediately available for comment when contacted by BleepingComputer earlier today.
In November, the French Football Federation (FFF) also disclosed a data breach after attackers gained access to administrative management software used by football clubs using a compromised account.
Modern IT infrastructure moves faster than manual workflows can handle.
In this new Tines guide, learn how your team can reduce hidden manual delays, improve reliability through automated response, and build and scale intelligent workflows on top of tools you already use.
A Scholastic Book Fair cash register appears for sale on eBay, and Michael MJD simply wants to get his hands on it for a closer look. It turns out to be a PAX E500 POS terminal that Scholastic had customized for their traveling sales events. These devices would process orders for books, posters, pencils, and anything else was piled up in those brief, generally chaotic classroom installations.
The front is a large touchscreen that launches Scholastic’s proprietary point-of-sale software. This is directly next to a magnetic stripe and chip card reader, so you can use your credit card. Along the bottom, there’s a thermal receipt printer waiting to be fed paper, as well as its own button to release new rolls. Moving to the back, we have a set of practical connections: a cash drawer port and an obsolete barcode scanner, power, dual Ethernet ports labeled LAN A and another, as well as an HDMI output and audio connector attached to a little extension board secured in place by a single tiny screw. A small camera looks ahead and is primarily used to scan QR codes associated with Scholastic’s e-wallet system. An internal battery is built in to keep the gadget running for a few minutes if the power goes out; however, it only showed 7% when it was still plugged in.
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When you turn it on, the screen lights up with a digital voice informing you that additional paper is required or that the printer cover is open, just the standard safety checks. The software then prompts you for a PIN, which by default is 9999, as well as your login credentials. The following screen displays a summary of all the facts from the last time it was used, including the fair chairperson’s name and tax settings. The fact that it may be used offline is deliberate; Scholastic fairs are frequently held in locations such as gyms or libraries that do not always have dependable internet access, so it retains all transactions locally until it can reconnect. You also have a training mode that allows you to practice without any actual money moving hands, which is definitely a smart idea. MJD adds a variety of goods to a mock order, including erasers, hand pointers, deep ink stickers, a plethora of pencils and pens, and even gift cards.
Android 6.0.1 (Marshmallow) is installed on the machine, but it has been heavily modified to create a version dubbed PDroid that is specifically tailored for secure payment systems. But you won’t find the Google Play store anywhere, and if you try to enable unknown sources or developer mode, you’ll receive a notice telling you can’t; this is all due to some extremely strong security regulations in place. Any attempts to sideload programs are immediately shut down by the system simply because you cannot change the security settings to make them operate. Other pre-installed apps on the system include a payment device manager, which was last updated in March 2022, and a little tool called a connectivity suite, which will assist you in getting your data uploaded after you’re finished. Unplugging your TV and using an HDMI cord to mirror your screen to an external display works great, but the printer itself will not work during any simulated checkout process. That’s presumably because when you try to print receipts, it starts taking a lot of power, putting the machine into battery saver mode, and even when you’re plugged in, the status bars turn orange and the printer just stops operating.
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