Sony engineers dropped jaws at a TV conference in Algeria in April 1981. They brought out a completely functional setup complete with a camera, monitor, and tape recorder capable of capturing images sharper and more detailed than anyone had ever seen outside of a laboratory. NHK, Japan’s main public broadcaster, had spent years working on a new standard called Hi-Vision, which effectively gave a lot more lines of resolution than ordinary TV ever could. As a result of their close collaboration, development work moved forward at full speed. Sony introduced a full line of commercial gear under the HDVS branding in April 1984, with the HDC-100 camera and HDV-1000 recorder at the center.
This system worked by creating high-definition signals from analog video across 1125 scanning lines, 1035 of which included the actual visible image. They started with a 5:3 screen ratio before switching to 16:9, which they still use today. To ensure seamless movement, video was scanned in an interlaced pattern at 60 fields per second, and the picture was noticeably clearer than anything else on TV at the time.
The HDC-100 cameras were at the core of every production, with the original weighing approximately 22 pounds due to the three massive Saticon tubes within. It required calm hands to operate without overheating or causing unpleasant ‘burn in’ to the images. Later models, such as the HDC-300, attempted to enhance the tubes, while the 1988 HDC-500 began employing CCD sensors, which were much lighter and more dependable while still providing the same level of information. The recording equipment was similarly high-tech. The HDV-1000 reel-to-reel deck used standard one-inch tape but managed to record far more data. The tape moved so quickly on the heads that you were lucky to get an hour of recording on each reel, and a separate processor cleaned and smoothed the signal when you played it back.
As you can probably imagine, the pricing for this system were outrageous. In 1985, the total cost of a camera, recorder, and monitor was $1.5 million. Later digital improvements, such as the 1988 HDD-1000, boosted individual items to more than $600,000, with metal-evaporated tape adding thousands more each hour of recording. Few of these systems left the plant, but when they did, they were typically used in medical labs, aerospace facilities, or animation studios where the increased resolution was critical.
There were still opportunities for creative sorts to play. Arrival, a 1986 short film about Halley’s Comet, received a theatrical release after being converted to standard film. The next year, an Italian crew completed Julia and Julia, the first full-length drama shot exclusively on this system, and it starred Kathleen Turner. Genesis was also able to get some live music events on the list, capturing their Invisible Touch Tour at Wembley Stadium for home video release.
A lot of the conversation around AI in healthcare focuses on diagnostics and drug discovery or on doctor-patient visits. But a less visible part of the system affects whether patients actually get seen at all, and it has less to do with the number of doctors in the world (too few) and more with the administrative work (too much) that happens between a primary care doctor writing a referral and a specialist’s office getting a patient on the schedule. That gap, it turns out, is huge, stubbornly manual, and increasingly attracting serious interest from venture capitalists.
Kaled Alhanafi, a former Lyft and Cruise executive, and Chetan Patel, who spent a decade building cardiac devices at Medtronic, co-founded Basata after each experienced the problem directly.
For Patel, the issue became personal when his wife fainted on a flight with their young children. Even with his deep knowledge of cardiology and the specific devices that could help her, he says navigating the administrative process to get her appropriate care took far longer than it should have. “We have the best doctors, we have some of the best medicines, but the care gap is just so wide,” he said.
Alhanafi describes a parallel experience with his own father, who was referred to three cardiology groups after a serious carotid artery diagnosis. According to Alhanafi, only one called back within a couple of weeks. Another responded after the surgery was already done. The third still hasn’t called.
These aren’t unusual outcomes, as nearly anyone who has tried to see a specialist in recent years can attest. Specialty practices that receive referrals are frequently processing hundreds or thousands of documents — most arriving by fax — with small administrative teams. Practices lose patients not because they don’t want to see them, the company argues, but because they can’t get through the intake backlog.
Basata, founded two years ago in Phoenix, is trying to fix this. When a referral comes in — still typically by fax, alas — Basata’s system reads and processes the document, extracts the relevant clinical information, and then an AI voice agent calls the patient directly to schedule the appointment.
Patients can also call the practice at any hour and reach an AI agent that can answer questions or handle common administrative needs like prescription renewals. Alhanafi says the company has recordings of patients audibly surprised by how quickly they’re contacted after a referral is sent. The goal, he says, is for a patient to have a scheduled appointment by the time they reach their car in the parking lot after seeing their primary care doctor.
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The company integrates with the electronic medical record systems that specific specialties actually use, which is why it says it has moved carefully — cardiology first, then urology — rather than trying to serve every corner of the market at once. The founders say they recently turned down a large deal in a specialty they haven’t yet mapped thoroughly enough to feel confident doing well.
The revenue model is usage-based: practices pay per document processed and per call handled, rather than per seat. The company says it has processed referrals for roughly 500,000 patients to date, with about 100,000 of those coming in the last month alone.
Basata says it has raised $24.5 million in total, including a new $21 million Series A round led by Lan Xuezhao of Basis Set Ventures, who began her career modeling the human brain as a PhD researcher before moving into corporate strategy at McKinsey and Dropbox and ultimately into investing. Cowboy Ventures, founded by Aileen Lee, also participated, as has Victoria Treyger, a former general partner at Felicis Ventures who more recently stood up her own venture firm, Sofeon (this is its first investment).
The space is getting crowded. Tennr, a New York-based startup founded in 2021, has raised over $160 million to date — including from Andreessen Horowitz, IVP, Lightspeed, and Google Ventures — and is now valued at $605 million. Tennr focuses heavily on document intelligence and has says it has built proprietary language models trained on tens of millions of medical documents. Assort Health, backed by Lightspeed, focuses on automating patient phone communication for specialty practices and last year raised at a $750 million valuation.
Lee said the founders’ years of experience are an asset in a space filling up with well-funded competitors. “There are a lot of [VCs] chasing around high school dropouts and college dropouts, but when you’re selling to medical practices, trust is a really big deal,” she said. “These doctors want to look you in the eye and know that they can count on you.”
Basata’s founders meanwhile argue that their differentiation lies in combining both capabilities into a single end-to-end workflow tailored to specific specialties instead of building a tool that handles just one part of the process. That may be harder to sustain as better-funded competitors expand, but there’s clearly a market signal here.
Of course, like many AI companies automating work that humans currently do, Basata will eventually face a harder question about where the line is between augmenting workers and displacing them. For now, the founders say the administrative staff they work with aren’t worried about that; they’re more worried about drowning. Indeed, Alhanafi notes that the administrative staff at specialty practices have often been in their roles for decades and know the work intimately; they’re also buried in volume that no reasonable number of hires could fully absorb.
Whether AI merely expands what these workers can do or gradually makes many of their functions unnecessary is a question that applies well beyond healthcare. For now, Basata’s pitch is the former: that freeing administrators from the most repetitive parts of the job makes them better at the rest of it. Judging by one stat shared by Alhanafi — that 70% of the company’s new deals now come through word of mouth — it seems the people closest to the problem find that argument convincing.
Pictured above, left to right: Chetan Patel, who is co-founder and president of Basata; Kaled Alhanafi, the company’s CEO; and Vivin Paliath, the company’s third co-founder and CTO.
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Audeze was early to figure out something the rest of the headphone industry was slow to accept: gaming was not a side quest. It became a multi-billion dollar category, and gamers were no longer satisfied with disposable plastic headsets that sounded like a drive-thru speaker with RGB lighting.
The California-based planar magnetic headphone specialist jumped into the space years ago with the Mobius, followed by the original Maxwell, both of which helped establish Audeze as a serious player in high-performance gaming audio. Maxwell’s success also arrived before Sony Interactive Entertainment acquired Audeze, a move that made it very clear that premium gaming audio had become big business.
Now Audeze is taking the personalization angle further with ReSkin, a new program built around the Maxwell 2’s user-swappable magnetic earcup covers. The idea is simple: give Maxwell 2 owners a way to change the look of their headset without replacing the headset itself.
Audeze gave me and Editor-at-Large Chris Boylan a first look at ReSkin during CanJam NYC 2026, but the original designs were not ready for publication until the program was finalized. That restraint was probably wise. Gamers are not one tribe with one uniform. They are competitive players, streamers, collectors, anime fans, sci-fi addicts, design nerds, and people who just want their gear to look less like it was issued by an IT department with trust issues. ReSkin is Audeze recognizing that sound quality matters, but identity matters too.
The Audeze Maxwell 2 is Audeze’s second generation wireless gaming headset, designed for players who want serious audio performance without giving up battery life, comfort, or broad platform support. It uses 90 mm planar magnetic drivers with Audeze’s Fluxor magnet arrays and Fazor waveguides, along with the company’s newer SLAM acoustic technology, which is designed to improve spatial precision and low frequency control without leaning only on DSP tricks.
Maxwell 2 also keeps the practical stuff in focus. It supports PlayStation, Xbox, Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and Nintendo Switch, depending on version and connection type, with a USB-C low latency wireless dongle, Bluetooth 5.3, LDAC, LE Audio, AAC, and SBC support. Battery life is rated at over 80 hours at 80 dBA, which matters if your idea of a short gaming session somehow ends at 2:17 a.m. with poor decisions and one more match.
The design changes are not just cosmetic. Audeze reworked the suspension strap, earpads, internal fit, microphone system, and control app. The removable boom mic uses upgraded FILTER AI noise reduction, while the new app gives users more control over settings across desktop and mobile platforms. The magnetic earcup system also opens the door for ReSkin, which lets Maxwell 2 owners change the look of the headset without replacing the entire product. That is the smart part: Audeze is treating personalization as part of ownership, not as an excuse to sell another headset.
The first wave of Audeze ReSkin designs gives Maxwell 2 owners a range of curated magnetic earcup covers that go well beyond basic color swaps. The launch lineup includes Panopticon All Seeing Eye, Flux Warning Futuristic Biohazard Sign, Kankan Koneko Angry Cat, Planar Scan Audeze Driver Design, White Audeze Deco Cup Contemporary Style, and the Dia De Los Muertos No.001 to No.006 Prestige Edition designs.
The Dia De Los Muertos Prestige Edition pieces are the most limited and artisanal of the group. Audeze says those designs are handcrafted by a Southern California artisan and finished with a high gloss lacquer, giving them a more durable shine and a different feel from the standard designs. That matters because this is not Audeze tossing a few skins into the box and calling it customization. These are physical earcup attachments for a headset that was already designed to support magnetic cover swaps.
Audeze CEO Sankar Thiagasamudram says the goal is to give Maxwell fans “unique styles and looks,” with more designs and collaborations planned. That makes sense. Gamers are not a monolith, and neither are headphone buyers. Some want clean and understated. Others want angry cats, warning labels, driver graphics, or something that looks like it escaped a late night anime marathon with unfinished business.
The key detail is how simple the system appears to be. Maxwell 2’s earcup covers attach magnetically and can be removed with a simple motion, which means owners can change the look of the headset without tools, adhesive, or the kind of DIY mistake that ends with regret and customer support. ReSkin works because Maxwell 2 was built for this from the start.
Audeze ReSkin gives Maxwell 2 owners a simple way to personalize their headset without replacing it or reaching for cheap stick-on skins. The magnetic earcup covers are available now for $39.99 or $59.99 each, work with both the PlayStation and Xbox versions, and turn customization into something physical, swappable, and actually tied to the product design. This is for Maxwell 2 owners who care about performance but also want their headset to look like theirs, not another black plastic gaming appliance waiting for a firmware update and therapy.
Where to buy: $349 at Audeze | Crutchfield | Amazon
Google launched the Fitbit Air, a 100 dollar screenless fitness band that rivals Whoop’s hardware design but undercuts its subscription by more than half, paired with a Gemini-powered AI health coach at 10 dollars a month. The device launches alongside a forced migration of Fitbit data to Google accounts by 19 May and a rebranding of Fitbit’s software as Google Health, raising privacy questions about the company’s handling of sensitive health data.
TL;DR
Google spent 2.1 billion dollars buying Fitbit in 2021, three years dismantling the brand, and on Thursday launched a 100 dollar device with no screen, no buttons, and no independent functionality to bring it back. The Fitbit Air is a soft fabric band with a five-gram sensor pack underneath that tracks heart rate, steps, sleep, blood oxygen saturation, and heart rate variability.
Google Health App, source: Google
It cannot display a notification, make a call, or tell you the time. What it can do is feed data into a new Google Health app powered by a Gemini-based AI health coach that interprets the metrics, designs workout plans, analyses photographs of meals for macronutrient content, and provides personalised coaching for 10 dollars a month. The device goes on sale on 26 May. Preorders begin Thursday. And the product Google is actually selling is not a fitness band. It is a subscription.
The Fitbit Air weighs 12 grams with the strap and five grams without, making it lighter than most smart rings. Battery life is seven days, and a five-minute fast charge adds a full day of use. The band comes in four colours, obsidian, fog, lavender, and berry, with additional straps available for 35 dollars. Without a screen or physical buttons, the device uses haptic feedback for an alarm clock and a small LED to indicate battery status. It supports voice input for logging activity and meals but cannot audibly respond.
It can detect atrial fibrillation, a feature that has become standard across recent wearables after years of regulatory clearance work. The sensor pack is removable and clips into the fabric band, a design that is unmistakably modelled on Whoop’s hardware architecture.
The resemblance to Whoop is not coincidental. Whoop, which raised 575 million dollars in March at a 10.1 billion dollar valuation, has built a business around the thesis that a screenless wearable focused on recovery, strain, and sleep data can command premium subscription revenue without the distraction of notifications, apps, and display. Whoop does not charge for hardware but requires an annual subscription starting at 200 dollars. Google’s Fitbit has been developing health monitoring capabilities, including FDA-cleared atrial fibrillation detection algorithms, that bring it closer to the clinical-grade data that Whoop and Oura users rely on for training decisions.
The Fitbit Air’s 100 dollar price point and optional 10 dollar monthly subscription undercuts Whoop’s annual cost by more than half and Oura’s 349 dollar ring by more than two-thirds, while offering a comparable sensor suite. The question is whether the AI coach can deliver insights that justify the ongoing cost, or whether most users will rely on the free tier and treat the device as a basic tracker.
The more significant announcement is the rebranding of Fitbit’s software ecosystem as Google Health. The new app, available on both iOS and Android, is structured into four tabs, Today, Fitness, Sleep, and Health, and provides standard metrics including steps, calories, sleep stages, and vital signs. Users can manually log meals and menstrual cycles and share data with contacts or other health platforms. The free tier covers all tracking features.
The 10 dollar monthly subscription adds the Google Health Coach, a Gemini-powered AI assistant that analyses sensor data in the context of a user’s stated goals and provides coaching recommendations. Users can upload photographs of meals for calorie and macronutrient assessment, a feature that leverages the multimodal capabilities of Gemini’s vision models.
Rishi Chandra, who leads Google’s wearables and health division, described the Health Coach as the beginning of a platform strategy. “We want every hardware product we’re building, from the Pixel Watch to the full Fitbit portfolio, to really optimise around this Health Coach,” he said. Google has invested tens of billions of dollars in AI capabilities, from its own Gemini models to a reported 40 billion dollar investment in Anthropic, and the Health Coach represents one of the first consumer applications designed to convert that AI investment into recurring subscription revenue through a mass-market hardware device.
Chandra’s analogy, that the Health Coach aims to give ordinary users the support structure of a professional athlete’s nutritionist, sleep coach, and fitness trainer, articulates the value proposition. The execution depends on whether Gemini can produce health insights that are consistently useful rather than generically encouraging, a distinction that will determine whether users continue paying after the three-month free trial included with the device.
The wristband market that the Fitbit Air enters is dominated by Chinese manufacturers. Xiaomi controls roughly half the global wristband market, according to IDC, followed by Huawei at approximately a quarter and Samsung at 10 per cent. Fitbit holds about six per cent. Whoop, despite its 10 billion dollar valuation, holds only two per cent. The market grew 14.7 per cent in 2025, driven primarily by Xiaomi’s focus on affordability and scale.
The Fitbit Air’s 100 dollar price positions it above the cheapest Xiaomi bands, which start below 30 dollars, but well below the premium segment where Whoop and Oura operate. The strategic positioning is clear: Google is targeting the gap between budget Chinese bands and premium health trackers, offering AI-driven insights at a price point that neither end of the market currently serves.
The European Commission is preparing to force Google to open Android to rival AI assistants, a regulatory action that could affect the degree to which Google Health and its Gemini-powered coach can be bundled as default experiences on Android devices. But the Fitbit Air’s cross-platform strategy, launching simultaneously on iOS and Android, suggests Google is positioning Health as a standalone product rather than an Android exclusive.
Chandra described the Fitbit brand as Google’s primary wearable for a broader audience, with the Pixel Watch reserved for committed Pixel and Android users. The distinction matters: Fitbit’s historical strength was its platform neutrality, and the decision to launch Google Health on iOS signals that Google views the subscription revenue as more valuable than the ecosystem lock-in.
The launch coincides with a deadline that underscores the tensions in Google’s health data strategy. Fitbit users who have not migrated their data to a Google account by 19 May will lose access to the Fitbit platform entirely, with data deletion beginning on 15 July. The deadline, originally set for 2025, was extended to February 2026, then pushed again to May after user pushback.
The forced migration converts Fitbit’s health data, years of sleep records, heart rate trends, activity logs, and weight measurements, from a standalone health platform into a dataset attached to a Google account. Google has committed to keeping health data separate from Google Ads and has said it will not use the data for advertising purposes. Seven EU countries have accused Google of violating GDPR through user tracking, and the migration of sensitive health data into Google’s account infrastructure raises the same category of privacy questions that regulators across Europe have been asking about the company’s data practices for years.
Google’s history of discontinuing products casts a shadow over the Fitbit Air launch that no amount of marketing can dispel. The company has killed more than 290 products and services, from Google Reader to Google Plus to Stadia, and the three-year silence between Fitbit’s last major hardware launch and the Air has already prompted questions about whether the brand was being wound down. Chandra’s statement that the Fitbit Air marks “the beginning of a resurgence” for Fitbit is precisely the kind of commitment Google has made before abandoning products.
The difference this time may be the subscription model. Google Health at 10 dollars a month, attached to a hardware device that costs 100 dollars, creates recurring revenue that Google’s previous consumer products, many of which were free or one-time purchases, did not generate. The Fitbit Air is Google’s cheapest bet on consumer health. The AI coach is its most ambitious. And the question that will determine both products’ survival is whether a company that has never sustained a consumer subscription business outside of YouTube can build one around a device that cannot even tell you the time.
Nintendo is raising the price of its Switch 2 by $50 to $500 in the US as it faces higher memory costs and US tariffs, the company announced in its earnings report. That increase is less than the $150 that Sony’s PS5 console has gone up over the last year, but Nintendo has a younger, more price sensitive fan base, so that boost is likely to cut into sales.
The company revealed that it shipped 2.49 million Switch 2s this quarter, meaning it sold 19.86 million of the consoles in only three quarters over its last fiscal year. However, Nintendo is forecasting significantly lower sales of 16.5 million Switch 2s for the next full fiscal year.
Many analysts were expecting a sales forecast for next year of 20+ million Switch 2s considering the success of the console’s launch. The Japanese company may be tempering expectations a bit with its latest forecast, though, as it significantly underestimated sales last year. Nintendo still thinks its 16.5 million unit sales forecast “represents a solid level of adoption for Switch 2 in its second year after launch.”
Software sales also went up this year, with sales of 185.62 million units (Switch and Switch 2) compared to 155.41 million (Switch only) in FY 2025. Some of the highlights were Mario Kart World (14.7 million units), Donkey Kong Bananza (4.5 million units) and Pokemon Legends: Z-A (8.5 million units). Nintendo also noted that the Super Mario Galaxy movie has grossed over $800 million in its first four weeks.
Overall, Nintendo’s 2026 fiscal year revenue was up massively by 98.6 percent over 2025 to 2.3 trillion yen ($14.7 billion) compared to 1.16 trillion yen ($7.4 billion) the year before. It expects that to drop nearly 11.4 percent next year, though it’s forecasting a slight rise in operating profit due to boosted software sales. Its forecast included extra costs of about 100 billion yen “due to rising component prices, particularly for memory, and tariff measures.”
Apple is turning a new corner in 2026, as long-serving CEO Tim Cook steps down and current hardware engineering head John Ternus steps into the role once filled by Steve Jobs. Ternus has made his presence felt in the past several years, most recently taking Cook’s usual place on stage during the launch event for theMacBook Neo, Apple’s first budget laptop which is already proving a major threat to the Windows 11 ecosystem. With Cook voicing his biggest regrets as he exits, hope turns to Ternus for the future.
As 2026 draws on and Ternus’s control over Apple expands, we expect to see a number of new products that could be among the most exciting in quite some time. Some, like a folding iPhone, have spent a long time in development and have been expected. Others, such as a rumored “ultra” tier of touchscreen MacBooks, come out of the blue. Then there are a bevy of AI-powered gadgets which appear to be contingent on an AI-revamp for Siri. Of course, that Siri makeover has hit a number of snags along the way, so this is where things begin to venture into the realm of potential vaporware.
Before we dive in, it’s worth noting that none of these products have been officially announced by Apple, so it’s worth taking all of them with a grain of salt until you can walk into an Apple Store and buy one. With a volatile global market due to chip shortages driven by AI and an energy shock caused by the American-Israeli war with Iran, delays and product cancellations are even more likely than usual. With that out of the way, here are the most exciting Apple products in the pipeline for 2026 and beyond.
By far the most exciting new Apple product of 2026 is the long-awaited foldable iPhone. Expected to launch as the most premium member of the iPhone lineup, we hear the foldable will be branded as the iPhone Ultra according. Oddly, Macworld reports that it may not be part of the iPhone 18 lineup. Although foldable phones have been available for years, with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold debuting in 2019, Apple has established an historical pattern of arriving late to a market and shaking it up. The iPod was far from the first MP3 player, and the iPhone arrived after many years of BlackBerry and Palm devices, to name just a couple of examples.
For the folding iPhone, rumors and leaks appear to show Apple bucking trends. It will enter into a market dominated by Samsung and Motorola and will need to convince existing iPhone owners that a foldable is worth the price tag, which is likely to be high if the current crop of foldables is any indication. The rumored design is short and squat, similar to the original Google Pixel Fold and the Oppo Find N. This differentiates the device from competing models and may be a better experience for media consumption since the inner screen will be wider than those found on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 and other book-style foldables.
What will truly matter here is software. Samsung and other companies include a heap of software features designed to enhance the form factor. With a price tag north of $2,000 being bandied about, Apple will need to deliver similar value in order for the iPhone Ultra to be seen as more than a gimmick.
Apple won’t be resting on its laurels after finally launching the folding iPhone. We’re also seeing talk of a potential MacBook Ultra, which will sit above the MacBook Pro as the ultimate powerhouse for macOS users. Bloomberg’s veteran Apple leaker Mark Gurman reported it in March, and Macworld scooped additional details on April 30. The latter report suggests that the MacBook Ultra could be the first of Apple’s laptops to feature a touchscreen, reportedly with an OLED panel (fingers crossed it’s a tandem OLED of the type found in the iPad Pro’s gorgeous display).
If you’re familiar with Windows laptops, you’ll know that a touchscreen is hardly a groundbreaking feature in 2026. It was all the way back in 2012 that Microsoft launched Windows 8, completely redesigning its operating system for touchscreen support. Given that Apple has had capacitive touchscreens since the original iPhone, it’s shocking that it took nearly 20 years to put one in a Mac. Gurman projects that the touchscreen will help Apple to justify a significant price hike for the MacBook Ultra compared to the current MacBook Pro lineup.
More exciting is what could be under the hood. Apple reportedly plans on using the MacBook Ultra to showcase its upcoming M6 Pro and M6 Max chips. The M-series silicon has been one of Apple’s greatest triumphs, providing powerful and efficient performance. The M6 is expected to be built on a 2nm process from TSMC, providing respectable on-paper uplift to that already solid performance and efficiency. Other changes reportedly include a thinner design, a Dynamic Island like the iPhone in lieu of the notch found on current MacBook displays, and the addition of a cellular modem — Apple’s custom C1X or its successor.
Apple stumbled out of the gate when it entered the mixed reality market. The Apple Vision Pro, an XR headset built around spatial computing, was praised as one of the best computers you can strap to your face. However, its price tag of just under $3,500, coupled with a lack of killer apps, doomed its prospects. Even an updated M5 version couldn’t salvage it, and in late April, it appears that Apple is throwing in the towel.
But Apple is gearing up for another attempt to put tech on your face. This time, the company’s ambitions are far more modest. It is gearing up to launch a pair of smart glasses which, according to Bloomberg’s resident Apple scooper Mark Gurman, will be akin to the popular Meta Ray-Bans in that they will likely lack a display. Expected to launch in late 2026 and ship sometime in 2027, the glasses are expected to be more of a companion device for the iPhone as opposed to a standalone gadget. They will be able to capture photos and videos, play music, take phone calls, and handle voice commands using the new, AI-enhanced Siri.
The Bloomberg report claims Apple will differentiate its glasses by building them in-house rather than working with an established brand like Essilor Luxottica or Warby Parker, which are partnered with Meta and Google, respectively. Apple is betting that tight integration with the iPhone and a competitive price point will turn the frames into a ubiquitous accessory similar to AirPods or the Apple Watch. However, there’s a built-in ceiling to the smart glasses market that does not exist for earphones or watches. Those who do not require glasses to see clearly may be hesitant to adopt unless there’s a killer use case.
In early 2025, we reported that Apple’s next device could flip the tablet script. Bloomberg had caught wind of a new smart home hub that would integrate with Apple Home. Back then, the product seemed relatively straightforward as a 6-inch, square-shaped tablet with an interface primarily suited to smart home controls. Now, it’s looking like Apple is launching an entirely new product ecosystem.
Apple now appears to be readying two different smart home hubs that will become part of an entirely new product ecosystem. Both are still tipped to use the reported square tablet design. However, it is now said to be 7 inches rather than 6. What will differentiate the two products is that one will come with an adjustable, hemispheric base that may somewhat resemble that of the iMac G4, but with a speaker included in it so that it can be used for music streaming, a similar concept to the Google Pixel Tablet. Gurman has even claimed it will be able to swivel around to face users, calling it a “tabletop robot.” The other will be wall mounted.
At first blush, this sounds like a weird iPad, but the home tablet is believed to run a new operating system specifically for home use. It will have hardware for Face ID, which may also be used to change what’s displayed based on which user approaches it. Details will likely become clearer as time goes on. Given that this product was initially tipped for a 2025 release and is rumored to have been delayed due to Apple’s struggles with AI, don’t expect to see this unique, new Apple device until the engineers in Cupertino can get the revamped Siri fully out the door.
There are a number of rumored AI gadgets which may or may not come to market. Apple’s struggles with AI are well documented, including a class action lawsuit for false marketing and the recent resignation of the company’s AI chief, John Giannandrea. Among these gadgets are the home hub, as well as a Humane Pin style pendant and AI AirPods.
The pendant seems least likely to come out, especially since the disastrous failure of the Humane Pin already proved there’s not much appetite from consumers. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported in February that, unlike the Humane AI Pin, Apple’s wearable pendant will be connected to the iPhone, placing it closer to a display-free Apple Watch than a standalone smartphone replacement. Its exact capabilities are unknown, but it is expected to use onboard cameras and microphones for contextually aware functionality.
As for the AI AirPods, the idea is similar. The same report indicates that Apple plans to cram cameras into a pair of true wireless earbuds and see what kind of AI applications can be gained from that addition. It’s not an entirely unheard-of idea. At CES earlier this year, Razer showed off Project Motoko, a pair of gaming headphones with cameras on the outer shell of each earcup, but the company has yet to ship that product.
Given that Apple is pipelining three different display-free AI gadgets with cameras and microphones — glasses, the pendant, and AirPods — it seems unlikely that all three will launch. On the other hand, if it wants to push its AI deeper into users’ lives, perhaps allowing the consumer to choose the best form factor for their personal needs is a winning strategy.
Stop signs can be found on roads across America, and unlike some of the more confusing traffic signs, the instruction that they give is a very straightforward one. You’ll see them at many different kinds of intersections, but one place you might not expect to see a stop sign is on an interstate on-ramp. Drivers usually expect to be increasing their speed to match traffic before merging onto the interstate, so stopping might seem counterintuitive.
They’re not common, but stop signs on on-ramps are sometimes used as a temporary measure when construction work is taking place. In February 2026, construction crews in Portsmouth, Virginia, installed a stop sign on the on-ramp from Frederick Boulevard to the westbound I-264. Crews needed to install sound walls along the side of the interstate and, therefore, needed access to the shoulders of the road. To enable that access, they had to partially block the on-ramp.
In an interview with WTKR, an official explained that they installed the stop sign because they “did not have enough room for the taper length to go from the on ramp to the interstate to have people move safely” onto the interstate. The option of closing the ramp altogether was floated, but in the end, officials decided that the stop sign would be less of an inconvenience for drivers.
The installation of a stop sign on an on-ramp demands extra care for drivers looking to merge onto the interstate, and anyone tempted to breeze through one using a rolling stop might find themselves attracting the attention of law enforcement.
On-ramp stop signs require drivers who are already on the interstate to be vigilant, too. Speaking to WTKR, the Virginia Department of Transportation official asked that drivers “slow down and be aware that there’s people who are going to be at the stop sign for that on ramp,” making sure that they “give them a little bit of room to safely merge onto the interstate.”
As unusual as they might be, these on-ramp stop signs are far from the only rare stop sign variant that Americans might be able to spot on the roads. On certain private roads, drivers might also come across bright blue stop signs, which are most commonly found in Hawaii.
HMD plans to introduce the Vibe 2 5G in India on May 8. Ahead of the official debut, Flipkart has published a landing page confirming the handset’s online availability in the country. The teaser also reveals part of the phone’s front panel design.
The upcoming HMD Vibe 2 5G is expected to continue the brand’s focus on the affordable smartphone segment. The device may offer 5G connectivity at a budget-friendly price, which could help it stand out in the entry-level market. Some reports also suggest that the company could introduce a separate 4G version powered by a Unisoc T7200 processor.
The phone is expected to feature a 6.75-inch HD+ LCD screen with a 90Hz refresh rate. Other features could include 4GB of RAM and up to 256GB of expandable memory. There will be a 50MP dual rear camera system and a 5,000mAh battery as well.
The rumors indicate that the phone will have a 6.75-inch LCD display with HD+ resolution and a 90Hz refresh rate. In terms of photography, the device will have a rear camera with a 50MP primary sensor and a 2MP secondary sensor.
The HMD Vibe 2 5G is likely to target users looking for an affordable smartphone with modern features. According to rumors and previews, the phone might feature a huge screen that refreshes at 90 Hz, two rear cameras, memory expansion capabilities, and a large battery.
Most details about the HMD Vibe 2 5G are still under wraps for now. However, its predecessor, the Vibe 5G, offers a good look at the kind of features the new phone could bring. Last year, HMD launched the smartphone at a starting price of Rs. 11,999 in Black and Purple color options.
Amid a memory shortage that forced it to raise PS5 prices twice in less than a year, Sony sold just 1.5 million PS5s in its fourth fiscal quarter, down 46 percent from the year before. The company was relatively gloomy about its gaming division’s prospects next year too, forecasting that revenue would fall six percent ($1.69 billion).
Overall, Sony’s gaming division revenue was up slightly for the entire fiscal 2025 year with sales of 4.69 trillion yen ($29.9 billion) compared to 4.67 trillion yen ($29.8 billion) the previous year. Operating income was up 12 percent to 463.3 billion yen ($2.95 billion), thanks in part to an increase in PlayStation Network sales.
Some of Sony’s revenue and profit issues this year were down to impairment losses with Bungie due to Destiny 2′s poor sales. Without those charges on its back next year (plus the expected blockbuster launch of Grand Theft Auto VI in November), the company expects a 30 percent boost in profits for its next fiscal year despite the revenue drop.
Still, those forecasts will depend on its ability to obtain memory. “We plan to base our PS5 hardware sales in FY26 on the volume of memory we can procure at reasonable prices and we
expect hardware profitability to be essentially the same as FY25,” Sony said. In its previous earnings report, the company revealed that it had secured the minimum memory it needed to accommodate sales for the 2026 holiday season.
That may be cold comfort to PS5 fans, though, considering that a standard PS5 is far from affordable at $650 after the March 2026 price hike, up $150 from just a year ago. That’s for a nearly six-year-old console that’s inexorably approaching its end of life. Nintendo was going through the same thing with its aging Switch console early last year, but the June 2025 Switch 2 launch completely changed its fortunes, becoming the fastest-selling Nintendo console ever.
While Activity Rings are a staple for fitness enthusiasts, there might be times when you need to pause them. Here’s how you can do it in watchOS 26.
The Activity Rings on the Apple Watch are a great way to keep track of your daily movement, exercise, and standing goals. However, there are situations where keeping them active isn’t practical.
For instance, maintaining your usual activity level could interfere with the recovery process if you’re recovering from an illness or injury. Pausing the rings allows you to prioritize healing without feeling pressured to meet daily goals.
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The Philips 4000 Series (NA462) Stacked Dual Basket Air Fryer is a decent stacked air fryer that looks stylish, has a reasonable array of functions and cooks food evenly. The top 200°C temperature can feel quite restrictive for some food, though, and there isn’t as much going on as with rival appliances with as dear a price tag.
Sturdy build quality
Reasonably consistent cooking
Good capacity for family meals
200°C top temperature can be limiting
Not as many functions as key rivals
Expensive
10L capacity
This Philips air fryer has a large capacity across its two baskets, making it ideal for larger family cooking or for bulk arrangements.
Five cooking functions
It also has a decent array of food-specific functions, with everything from chips and fish to meat and vegetable covered.
Stacked dual-zone air fryers are all the rage at the moment, as folks seek to maximise capacity while retaining as much countertop space as possible – the Philips 4000 Series (NA462) Stacked Dual Basket Air Fryer is the brand’s first air fryer in this style.
On paper, everything looks to be in order, with a pair of five-litre stacked baskets, a bevvy of cooking functions and a stylish look that could make it a strong rival to the likes of the Ninja Double Stack XL 9.5 Air Fryer SL400UK and the Cosori Turbo Tower Pro 10.8L Dual Air Fryer.
At £269.99, though, it’s more expensive than both of those options, and will need to do quite a bit to come out on top as one of the best air fryers we’ve tested. I’ve been putting it through its paces for the last couple of weeks to find out.
This 4000 Series stacked air fryer is certainly compact, sitting at just 233 mm wide and 399 mm high, meaning it takes up roughly half the space across a countertop as a dual-basket side-by-side model.
At 469mm deep, though, it will still take up a fair amount of lateral space. Plus, since the baskets vent out the left side rather than the back, you’ll need to make sure they aren’t butted up too close to a wall on that side.
The black and gold accented colourway provides a bit of style to an otherwise quite non-descript box, and everything feels reassuringly sturdy. This air fryer tips the scales at 9.8kg, giving it a fair amount of heft for a smaller unit in some respects.
The two narrow baskets are evenly split in capacity, and the two five-litre baskets add up to a total of ten litres of capacity, putting it in the middle of the Ninja and Cosori options I’ve tested. Philips says it’s enough for this 4000 Series stacked air fryer to cook up to a kilo of chips, 24 chicken drumsticks or two whole chickens. It’s a good amount of space for family cooking. I’m also a fan of the fact that the baskets come with windows to make keeping an eye on food while it cooks nice and simple.
The preset functions here are based around specific foods rather than dedicated cooking modes, with five to choose from. You get a frozen chips setting, steak, fish, vegetables, and chicken, plus a reheat function and the customary sync and match options. The control panel sits above the baskets and is slightly angled – it’s easy to use, although in use, the lack of a proper minutes and seconds countdown is a bit of a shame.
Once you’re done with the fryer baskets and crisper plates, they can both be put in the dishwasher. I avoided this in my testing and instead chose to handwash them. Doing so is easy, and they were clean, dry and put back in a matter of minutes.
This 4000 Series stacked air fryer will go as high as 200°C, which is fine for most use cases, although it means your cooked food may lack the extra crispiness that a higher max temperature can bring. Both Cosori and Ninja’s equivalent options can go as high as 230°C and 240°C, respectively.
There isn’t any form of smart features or app control, as you’ll find on a variant of the Cosori Turbo Tower, plus dearer single-basket air fryers such as the Dreo ChefMaker or Typhur Dome 2.
During my time with the 4000 Series stacked air fryer, I cooked a range of typical family foods to see how well it performs. In a general sense, I was happy with the results, although some items needed longer than in other air fryers I’ve used, such as frozen oven chips, and the array of functions is a little basic for the price.
Firstly, I cooked some breaded fishcakes at 190°C for 18 minutes on the Fish preset, and they came out well browned and piping hot after their time.
Similarly, some breaded chicken on the more ambiguous Chicken preset came out especially crispy in a very full basket after 20 minutes at 180°C.
Moving over to the Meat setting, I cooked a reasonably sized beef joint for a Sunday roast, which was put on 200°C for the first 20 minutes to brown and sear, before being turned down to 165°C for 40 minutes. The end result was a decent sear and a moist piece of meat that was slightly pink in the middle as desired.
To go with the beef, I used the Vegetable setting to cook cavalo nero and broccolini, which went on for 25 minutes at 180°C. Halfway through cooking, I added some more cavalo nero and sprayed it with oil and seasoned it with salt. The end result was crispy in places, but not necessarily everywhere.
I went back to the Chicken preset for some chicken cordon bleu at 180°C for 30 minutes, which came out crispy and piping hot.
The disappointment with this 4000 Series stacked air fryer was how it cooked some frozen oven chips, which were initially put in the basket and cooked for 25 minutes at the top temperature of 200°C on their dedicated setting. It ended up taking closer to 35 minutes for them to be ready, which feels a lot longer than other air fryers I’ve used.
This Philips air fryer cooks food evenly in my testing across a range of different types that makes it a good choice for families.
For the higher price, though, it feels quite basic in terms of functions and the top 200°C temperature when rival devices offer more in both senses.
The Philips 4000 Series (NA462) Stacked Dual Basket Air Fryer is a decent stacked air fryer that looks stylish, has a reasonable array of functions and cooks food evenly. The top 200°C temperature can feel quite restrictive for some food, though, and there isn’t as much going on as with rival appliances with as dear a price tag.
For instance, the Cosori Turbo Tower Pro 10.8L Dual Air Fryer provides more functions, a higher top temperature, a larger overall capacity and a bottom basket with dual elements for a similar price, while the Ninja Double Stack XL 9.5 Air Fryer SL400UK also has more functions and a higher top-end temperature. For more choices, check out our list of the best air fryers we’ve tested.
We test every air fryer we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
The Philips 4000 Series (NA462) Stacked Dual Basket Air Fryer has a ten litre capacity, split evenly across the two five-litre baskets.
| Philips 4000 Series (NA462) Stacked Dual Basket Air Fryer |
|---|
| Philips 4000 Series (NA462) Stacked Dual Basket Air Fryer Review | |
|---|---|
| UK RRP | £269.99 |
| Manufacturer | Philips |
| Size (Dimensions) | 233 x 469 x 399 MM |
| Weight | 9.8 KG |
| Release Date | 2025 |
| First Reviewed Date | 30/03/2026 |
| Accessories | Crisper plates, baskets |
| Stated Power | 2750 W |
| Number of compartments | 2 |
| Cooking modes | Chips, Fish, Chicken, Vegetables, Meat, Reheat |
| Total food capacity | 10 litres |
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