Fitness trackers flood the market with options that range from stripped-down counters to full smartwatches loaded with apps and sensors. Many buyers end up frustrated when a device either skips the basics or piles on features that demand constant charging and attention. The Fitbit Charge 6, priced at $76 (was $160), takes a different path by sharpening the core jobs most people actually want from a wristband while adding just enough extras to feel modern and useful.

When performing intense workouts like interval training, spinning, or rowing, your heart rate will noticeably improve, and the readings will really match what a chest strap tells you, which is a huge plus. To be honest, step counts and distance estimations haven’t changed much for daily strolls, commutes, and jogging, but that’s fine because those fundamentals are what give you the confidence to utilize the data to make genuine decisions about your workout routine and downtime. Because, let’s be honest, accuracy is important because it helps you trust the data you’re looking at.

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The battery life is likewise impressive, allowing for regular wear, which is what makes data valuable. Most people can get through several days of tracking, sleep monitoring, and notifications without needing to recharge. According to real-world experience, it can last anywhere from 4 to 7 days depending on screen brightness, GPS usage, and how frequently it syncs with your phone. That type of endurance makes it far easier to figure out what’s going on with your body than seeing a few sporadic days’ worth of information.

The Charge 6 is also quite comfy, so it doesn’t just sit on a shelf somewhere. The compact profile and light weight make it easy to forget it’s there during the day, and the screen is clear indoors and out. Furthermore, the reappearance of the side button makes it easier to navigate, which is far superior than how some people had been accustomed to the swipes. It also comes in two band sizes, allowing you to choose a secure but not too tight fit with no effort.

The wearable supports almost all of the common regular exercise activities you’d want to track without overwhelming you, with 40 different modes that can handle anything from a weightlifting session to a hike in the great outdoors, and it can even detect when you’re about to start a workout and begin tracking automatically. It also has built-in GPS, so you can leave your phone at home and simply track your path. Plus, you can send your heart rate data directly to the gym equipment, which is a nice touch.

The recovery and stress phases are where this truly goes beyond simply taking measures. Overnight tracking divides sleep into stages, monitors blood oxygen levels, and even detects variations in skin temperature, which can indicate disease or hormonal shifts. It also offers you an everyday stress score utilizing the EDA stuff and tells you when you’re ready to push yourself a little more or back off completely.

The “smart” features are quite modest. You’ll get phone and text alerts on your wrist, but they won’t get in the way; for Google users, there are also maps and wallet payments available if needed. You can also control your music with YouTube Music, which is useful for longer walks or commuting. None of this adds up to the Charge 6 being a mini phone, since it simply removes a host of little annoyances. The companion app does a wonderful job of keeping everything organized, with simple displays that do not overwhelm you. You may even track patterns over weeks to see if your sleep is improving or deteriorating. It will occasionally remind you to get active, which may be exactly what you need.

Silverstone gets ready for a different kind of lap this weekend when all 22 Formula 1 drivers take the wheel of minicars made from LEGO bricks. Builders at the LEGO factory in Kladno, Czech Republic, put more than 6,400 hours into creating these 22 vehicles. Each one incorporates over 28,000 bricks arranged over a steel frame to match the specific livery of every team on the grid. Driver numbers and team emblems appear in their proper places with a playful LEGO touch.

Complete LEGO minicars weigh approximately 280 kg. Only 65 kilos of that weight come from the actual bricks, which are what people think of when they hear the word LEGO. Standard go-kart wheels sit at each corner, with electric motors providing power to propel them forward. When they do? The maximum speed is a fairly reasonable 25 kph (15.5 mph).

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A team of 20 designers and engineers worked their magic on this project, and team leader Jonathan Jurion stated that they went back to the drawing board after last year’s Miami Grand Prix to double-check every detail. Drivers and fans responded clearly: they wanted a larger version of the entire experience.

To be honest, last year’s show had a much more relaxed atmosphere. There were fewer automobiles, and the scene was chaotic, with bricks flying everywhere. Thankfully, they’ve addressed this issue this time around with the inclusion of plastic bumpers, roll hoops, and fenders to keep all of the parts where they belong, on the vehicles, rather than in mid-air and going for the drivers.

The actual racing, if you can call it that, begins approximately 90 minutes after the drivers are lined up for the parade on Sunday. The course is a full lap of the Silverstone circuit, which will be aired live online via Formula 1 networks.

Julia Goldin, the LEGO Group’s chief product and marketing officer, believes that the fan and driver reactions in Miami made it a simple decision to continue with the project. Emily Prazer, Formula 1’s chief commercial officer, thinks that this unusual collaboration between the two worlds will be a success because people of all ages will enjoy watching genuine F1 drivers in miniature cars.

This one started small in Miami, but it’s now heading to Silverstone with the complete package – a slew of custom-built machines. The sight of these F1 racers blatting around one of the world’s quickest tracks in LEGO-built cars is sure to be a spectacle before the main event begins.

NASA’s shuttle has been in LA since 2012, but now it’ll have a permanent exhibit at the California Science Center.

• Comet Q’s controls iPhones remotely without installing anything on the device
• Hardware-level access survives screen locks, sleep states, and network interruptions
• One USB-C cable replaces cables normally required for traditional KVM setups

GL.iNet, the Hong Kong-based networking company behind a range of popular OpenWrt routers, has revealed the Comet Q, what it says is as the world’s first browser-based, pocket-sized remote-control device built specifically for USB-C devices, covering laptops, phones, tablets, and Mac minis.

What separates the device, also known as the GL-RMQ1, from conventional remote desktop software is that it operates at the hardware level, meaning it keeps working even when the controlled device sleeps, locks, or loses its network connection.

Artificial intelligence has proven that it can trawl the internet to retrieve information quickly for answering questions. But teaching students using AI is a harder task. The stakes are even higher when the goal is not just learning in school, but performing well on high-stakes exams like the SAT and ACT.

On the face of it, education might seem like a natural extension of large language models. If AI can replace customer support, certainly it can provide back answers just as a teacher would.

But being educated in a school is not a consumer experience. Teachers and school administrators aren’t looking for chatbots. Chatbots can hallucinate, chatbots can make mistakes. But if you hand over the instruction of a pupil to a chatbot, you can impede a student’s progress for months. Educators need the tools they use to be bullet-proof, safe, accountable, and consistent.

That’s why the creators of Smartschool, a Palo Alto-based educational technology company, decided to build their platform by starting with the problems faced by students and educators. Rather than adapting existing AI tools, they invested in building an AI tutor designed to help students truly learn and perform under pressure. That gap between a clever chatbot and a tool educators can actually trust is what Smartschool set out to close, with the SAT and ACT among the key exams it supports.

In a way, they were well prepared for the task. Smartschool was founded by three Polish entrepreneurs – Matt Masłowski, Paul Burzyński, and Kajetan Lewandowski. The trio had experience working for a variety of tech firms along with a solid education background. They also grew up in a Poland undergoing a difficult economic transition, where opportunities were limited and access to quality education was far from guaranteed.

“Coming from relatively underprivileged backgrounds, we wanted to be able to help people get great educations and make it possible to have similar stories, so long as they want to take action,” remarks Maslowski, Smartschool’s CEO. “Because if we keep the current education system as it is, when the whole world is changing so rapidly, we will have an extremely unfair and unequal society in the future,” he says.

The challenges of AI-based learning

A core observation of the Smartschool team is that generic AI systems were not designed for the realities of the classroom. This is particularly true for mathematics education, as large language models are known to hallucinate. They might jump ahead, skip steps, and reward wrong answers. These kinds of technical glitches can pose real problems for teachers and students, and certainly are responsible in part for the skepticism that now exists towards AI.

AI cannot also fit all in an educational setting. A successful platform needs to be customizable, so that it can be aligned with the curriculum and state standards, not to mention data privacy regulations.

“Most edtech tools are just wrappers around ChatGPT,” says Paul Burzyński, Smartschool’s chief product officer. “They have no understanding of what a student is actually working on in class.”

That gap between impressive AI demonstrations and practical classroom requirements is what Smartschool set out to address. Burzyński led the translation of advanced AI capabilities into classroom-ready workflows, working with teachers, students, and school districts to ensure the technology supports learning rather than distracting from it.

Mathematical reasoning

At the center of its platform is a proprietary mathematical reasoning engine developed under the product vision of Chief Product Officer Paul Burzyński and implemented by CTO Kajetan Lewandowski’s engineering team. Unlike general-purpose AI systems, Smartschool’s platform was designed specifically for real classroom conditions, combining educational workflows with advanced mathematical reasoning capabilities.

“It can evaluate handwritten student work, interpret diagrams and geometric constructions, and assess open-ended solutions,” Burzynski explains. “This is important because student learning is not limited to multiple-choice answers; it often involves showing reasoning steps and making mistakes that reveal thought processes.”

Rather than simply providing up answers like a GPT-powered Chatbot or search engine, Smartschool’s system is designed to give structured feedback that helps students improve their reasoning. The company reports that its system achieves 99.6 percent accuracy when assessing and providing feedback on high-school-level mathematics problems. The goal is not just correctness, but educational usefulness.

Under Burzyński’s product leadership, the Smartschool team designed the system for scale and classroom integration. It can be connected with existing learning management systems, curricula, and single sign-on platforms. Teachers can also assign work with one click, while student submissions are automatically graded and synced with gradebooks. Educators receive insights into student progress and misconceptions too.

“This design ensures the technology fits into existing teaching workflows instead of forcing schools to adapt to new systems,” says Burzynski.

AI that teachers and students can trust

As CEO, Masłowski has led Smartschool’s expansion into U.S. school districts while working closely with educators and administrators to ensure the platform delivers measurable learning outcomes. Alongside Burzynski and Lewandowski, he has helped demonstrate the reliability of the system to schools adopting AI-powered learning tools for the first time. But educators have caught on, encouraged by early success stories. Smartschool now operates in 30 US school districts, including within the New York City Department of Education and in Boston Public Schools. And there are measurable results. A study from the Learning Experience Design Research Institute found that 90 percent of students using the platform in Wisconsin’s Pewaukee School District met or exceeded math standards, for example.

Investors, and the media, have also taken note. The company in April raised $3 million in seed funding from private angels Mati Staniszewski (ElevenLabs), Marcin Żukowski (Snowflake), and Nick Woods (HazelHealth), as well as Inovo VC, the a16z Scout Fund, and The Explorer Fund. Several investors were early supporters of the team. Both Masłowski and Burzyński have also been recognized in Forbes 30 Under 30.

According to Maslowski, while it takes time to build trust in a market as conservative as edtech, the kinds of relationships the company is building, based on its experience and knowhow, should be in place for the long term. “Since the beginning, our focus has remained consistent,” he says. “We want to build AI that teachers can trust and that improves real educational outcomes in classrooms.“

Tesla opened orders for the Model Y L across the United States on July 2. The new variant stretches the popular crossover to deliver a genuine six-passenger layout with a usable third row for the first time in this lineup. Engineers added six inches to the wheelbase and seven inches to overall length. They also increased height by roughly two inches compared with the standard Model Y. These changes turn the third row from an occasional squeeze into space that works for adults on longer drives or for carpool duty with kids and gear.

Third-row legroom is now a respectable 31.2 inches, while headroom has improved to a very generous 38.1 inches. Your family will be very comfortable, and the second row will include captain’s chairs with heating, ventilation, motorized armrests, and the one-touch folding feature that makes it so much easier to get to the back. The third row features heated seats, motorized reclining, and standard child-seat anchors, which are a parent’s greatest friend. The bigger rear door apertures make it easier to get in and out; no more struggling to get the kids or yourself into the back seat. When both rear rows are folded flat, the maximum cargo volume is 89.6 cubic feet, allowing you to accommodate all of your luggage, sports equipment, or DIY project gear for a weekend without breaking out the trailer. However, if you choose a regular model Y with the third row up, you will have far less room.

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An 83-kwh battery provides an estimated 325 miles of range on 19-inch wheels, but increase the wheel size to 20 inches and you’ll get about 5 miles less. Dual motors transmit power to all four wheels, propelling you from 0 to 60 in 4.4 seconds. Plus, with a towing capacity of 3,500 pounds, you may tow small trailers or boats if necessary. If you’re looking at three-row electric vehicles, the Model Y L is up against the likes of the Kia EV9 and Hyundai Ioniq 9, but what sets it apart is its ability to outperform them on acceleration while matching range in a smaller overall package, and you can fit it into smaller spaces, which is a big plus.

Inside, you have an 8-inch touchscreen all to yourself in the second row, which is ideal for messing with the climate controls and audio while in the passenger seat. You also receive cooled wireless charging pads that can charge your phone at up to 50 watts, so you won’t have to worry about your battery dying. The sound system is significantly improved, with 19 speakers and the use of acoustic glass and adaptive dampening to reduce road noise and wind buffeting.

The Launch Series variant costs $61,990, which includes special badging, wheels, and a complimentary one-year subscription to Full Self-Driving, Supercharging, and premium connection. Once the original batch is sold out, you can expect to see further selections at cheaper prices. At this pricing, the Model Y L sits above the Model Y Performance but well below what you would have spent for a Model X, so if you want a larger model but don’t want to pay top bucks, this is a strong choice.

Google is one of the largest smartphone manufacturers in the world, so it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that Pixel handsets are sold in a number of regions outside the US. However, like all good device makers, Google tweaks its products based on where they are sold in order to conform to local regulations and customer preferences. Different countries have different languages, power sockets and networks, for instance. So for those curious about what’s different between Pixels sold here in America and those available abroad, here is a quick rundown of some of the most notable tweaks and changes between US models and their international variants.

Hardware

Unlike Samsung phones which often vary between featuring Snapdragon or Exynos chips depending on where they are sold, the differences between US and international Pixels are relatively minor, especially when you’re looking at the past several generations of products. The majority of recent international Pixel phones feature the same Tensor chips, memory and storage as US versions, along with identical camera sensors, display tech and charging capabilities. On the base Pixel 10, this includes a Tensor G5 processor, 12GB of RAM, 128GB or 256GB of storage, a 6.3-inch Actua OLED display and a rear camera module with a 48MP main, a 12MP ultra-wide and 10.8MP telephoto sensors. The physical design of Pixel handsets across various regions is also largely unchanged, right down to the materials used and color options.

The one small hardware discrepancy on Google’s most recent generation of phone is that while the Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL are all eSIM-only in the US, international models still support a physical Nano SIM slot along with eSIM functionality. Google says this change was made due to the ease of use and widespread support for eSIMs among American carriers in addition to being able to use the space that would normally be occupied by a physical SIM card for components needed to support mmWave 5G. The outlier to this is that all versions of the Pixel 10 Pro Fold (both in the US and abroad) offer physical Nano SIMs trays.

Software

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

Similar to hardware, there aren’t a ton of differences between the software on US Pixels and international variants. That is, with a caveat that as Google’s phones are available in more than 30 countries and support over a dozen languages, it can take extra time to localize features for specific markets. Often, brand new tools and apps will be available first in English in North America while Google works to ensure regulatory compliance and general usability in other languages and locales. One example of this is Magic Cue, which uses AI to surface important information like addresses and calendar appointments in messages based on context. Currently, the feature is available in a handful of countries including the US, Canada, India, the UK, Japan and others while Google works on enabling the feature in additional markets.

Cellular support

Perhaps the biggest difference between US Pixels and international models is cellular compatibility. On one hand, this may be somewhat obvious as carrier support varies greatly from country to country, but it’s still something that’s really important to consider, especially if you’re traveling or moving from one place to another. After all, a phone without a useful internet connection and the ability to make calls will be severely limited in its capabilities.

Furthermore, the type of cellular coverage can vary quite a bit from region to region. In the US, carriers like Verizon have invested much more heavily in mmWave 5G than many international providers. This type of 5G connectivity offers very high upload and download speeds with the trade-off being shorter range and penetration compared to mid-band and sub-6Ghz frequencies. So in an effort to keep costs down and ensure optimal performance, many phones sold internationally, including recent Pixels, don’t support mmWave 5G. The US also has stricter testing and vetting requirements for phones sold through carriers than many other countries, which is another reason why a lot of Chinese phones are not officially on sale here.

Generally, there is quite a bit of parity between Pixel phones sold in the US and those available overseas. If you are planning to move and you’re wondering about where you should buy your next phone, it’s often easiest to purchase it in the country or region you will be living in. But aside from that, particularly when it comes to hardware, there aren’t a ton of differences between US Pixels and international models.