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Darth Maul, the beloved, sometimes spider-legged former Sith Lord first introduced in Star Wars: Episode 1 The Phantom Menace , is officially getting his own animated spin-off on April 6, 2026, based on a new teaser trailer published by Disney. Star Wars: Maul Shadow Lord was originally announced at Star Wars Celebration in 2025, and is set after Maul's arc in Star Wars: The Clone Wars but before his appearance in Star Wars: Rebels . The 10-episode series covers Maul's plot to rebuild his crim

JBL is trying its hand at something new, with a pair of AI-powered practice amps. The BandBox Solo and BandBox Trio include an onboard Stem AI that purportedly lets you separate or remove vocals and instruments from any music streamed over Bluetooth. So, say you're a young guitarist learning Stairway to Heaven (as one does). At least in theory, you could use the speaker to remove Jimmy Page's part and hone your chops with the rest of the band. The $250 BandBox Solo, designed for individual music

Telly appeared on the home theater scene in 2023 with an unusual proposition. Its business model revolves around giving customers free dual-screen televisions where the lower screen shows non-stop advertisements. At the time, the start-ups execs projected that Telly would ship its first 500,000 screens that summer. However, Janko Roettgers of Lowpass reported that Telly only had 35,000 sets in people's homes at the end of the third quarter of 2025. The figure appears to come from a quarterly inv

Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison is apparently still hopeful that investors will approve his $108.4 billion hostile takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. Paramount Skydance announced Thursday that it's extending its all-cash offer to acquire the storied studio, and giving investors until February 20, 2026 to accept. The company's previous offer expired on January 21, but with a lawsuit in the works and a revised Netflix deal to compete with, Paramount Skydance wants to stay in the conversation

After half a decade of waiting, Microsoft finally offered an extended preview of its long-awaited reboot of the beloved Fable RPG franchise on Thursday. During the companys recent Developer Direct showcase , Playground Games, best known for its works on the Forza Horizon series, shared nearly 11 minutes of gameplay footage and commentary related to the upcoming title. The new game will feature a fully open world for players to explore, with locations from previous Fable games like Bowerstone mak

Double Fine has been on a tear with its smaller projects lately. The popular indie game developer is following up last year's atmospheric adventure game Keeper with a new title in a totally different direction. As its Double Fine founder Tim Schaefer attempted to say five times fast during today's Xbox Developer Direct, Kiln is an online multiplayer pottery party brawler that boasts exactly the sort of colorful, clever fun that fans have come to expect from the studio. Kiln is a game with two fa

It was only 16 months ago that Substack expanded into live video . Since then, it's become a widely adopted medium on the platform, including by its ever-growing list of cable news expats. Now, the company has decided it's ready for a bigger screen. Starting today, you can install a new Substack TV app on Apple TV and Google TV devices. Substack describes the app's initial launch as focusing on reliable, high-quality viewing for the platform's long-form videos. It centers around video posts and

Elon Musk just took the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and announced that Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot will be sold to the public by the end of next year. Musk is the master of unrealistic timetables , but this may be the nuttiest one yet. These are humanoid robots that are supposed to be able to do just about any task a human can do. Musk, as usual, gave himself an out if the robots don't start rolling off the assembly line in 2027, saying that they'll only be release

Mario Kart World received a free update today that brings a team option to its Knockout Tour mode. Initially, the Knockout races in this Nintendo Switch 2 launch title were only for solo drivers, challenging players to finish ahead of enough other competitors or get eliminated from the series. It was one of the highlights of the game in our review , and this new wrinkle should bring plenty more fun chaos to the racetrack. In the team mode, players compete either in two teams of twelve, three tea

Forza Horizon 6 is taking the racing series to Japan for the first time, and now we know exactly when youll be able to hit the virtual streets of Tokyo. The game will arrive on Xbox Series X/S, PC and Xbox Cloud on May 19, with an early access period commencing on May 15. That lines up with earlier reports about the release date(s) after an in-game ad supposedly appeared in Forza Horizon 5 . The upcoming title will hit PS5 later this year. The standard edition of Forza Horizon 6 is expected to c

So it's come to this: Apple is reportedly working on a wearable AI pin . According to The Information , it is going to be a small device with multiple cameras, a speaker, microphones and wireless charging. It sounds like the perfect gadget to pair with the long-awaited AI-powered Siri update , which will also reportedly work as a chatbot . But while many Apple rumors conjure up an air of excitement, the notion of an Apple AI pin sounds downright baffling. Worse, it just seems desperate. Apple, t

Korg just officially unveiled the Phase8 synthesizer , after years of tinkering by a team led by legendary engineer Tatsuya Takahashi. This is a highly experimental synthesizer, but it's not a concept unit. It'll be available for purchase in April. The Phase8 uses a new form of acoustic synthesis that combines acoustic sound generation with electronic control. Takahashi says the synthesizer is beyond analog vs. digital and beyond electronics altogether. It features chromatically tuned steel reso

We already knew xAI's Grok was barraging X with nonconsensual sexual images of real people . But now there are some numbers to put things in perspective. Over an 11-day period, Grok generated an estimated 3 million sexualized images including an estimated 23,000 of children. Put another way, Grok generated an estimated 190 sexualized images per minute during that 11-day period. Among those, it made a sexualized image of children once every 41 seconds. On Thursday, the Center for Countering Digi

We might still be in the midst of the playoffs, but that doesn't mean we can't plan ahead for Super Bowl LX . For those of you who just can't with Roman numerals, thats Super Bowl 60, and it's taking place this year at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, CA, on February 8, starting at 6:30 p.m. ET. Like all other Sunday Night Football games this season, the championship game will be broadcast on Super Bowl Sunday on NBC, and will stream live on Peacock. And it's not just the game that we're excited f

It only seems right that cloud gaming should welcome virtual pilots, and thats definitely now the case if GeForce Now is your streaming platform of choice. One of the most frequently requested features from its community according to NVIDIA , flight control support has now been added to its GeForce Now offering, meaning you can live your Top Gun fantasies without worrying about your rig buckling under the pressure. The first compatible peripheral is the Thrustmaster T.Flight HOTAS One which inc

In a chaotic world, one thing you can count on is your own common-sense steps toward better cybersecurity . Most of the holiday deals are over by now, but plenty of services are still offering excellent prices. With access to a virtual private network (VPN) , you can stream TV shows and events from all over the world, protect your information from hackers and thwart online trackers. We strongly recommend using a VPN , but you might get stuck with a substandard app if you jump on the very first d

At CES earlier this month, AMD announced the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, a more wallet-friendly take on its $700 9950X3D . The company promised the new chip would be out sometime in the first three months of the year, and it's going to arrive a bit sooner than you might have expected. It can be all yours on January 29 for $499. AMD says the 9850X3D builds on the 9800X3D with an 400MHz upgrade to the boost clock. It can reach boost speeds of 5.6GHz. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is an 8-core CPU with 16 threads and 1

The nominees for the 2026 Academy Awards were just announced and Ryan Coogler's vampire-adjacent period drama Sinners received a record-breaking 16 nominations. That's the highest number of Oscar nominations for a single film in the history of the awards, followed by Titanic , La La Land and All About Eve with 14 noms each. Sinners grabbed a nomination in nearly every major category, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. The same goes for the performances, as Michae

Waymos fully autonomous robotaxis are now accepting passengers in Miami. The city was one of five named in expansion plans last year, and joins the likes of Phoenix, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area on Waymos existing network. Waymo says that nearly 10,000 Miami residents have signed up so far, and that it will send out invites to new riders on a rolling basis in the weeks and months to come. The autonomous ride-hailing service will initially cover a 60-square-mile area that includes n

Xbox is set to hold the fourth installment of its now-annual Developer Direct showcase on January 22. Youll be able to watch the 2026 edition at 1PM ET on YouTube (including versions with audio descriptions and ASL ), Twitch , Facebook and Steam. Xbox will stream the Developer Direct on its regional channels simultaneously, and itll be available on Bilibili on Friday. The YouTube stream might be the way to go, since that one will be available in 4K and 60 fps. Because were so nice, weve embedded

After adding Personal Intelligence to Gemini as an opt-in experience, Google has announced that its also integrating the feature into AI Mode in Search. What Personal Intelligence does is pull information from your Google apps to tailor its responses based on your history and interests. For Search, in particular, you can allow Personal Intelligence to look for information in your Gmail accounts and Google Photos libraries. If you use AI Mode to shop for clothes with the new feature enabled, for

ExpressVPN is back on sale again, and its two-year plans are up to 78 percent off right now. You can get the Advanced tier for $101 for 28 months. This is marked down from the $392 that this time frame normally costs. On a per-month basis, it works out to roughly $3.59 for the promo period. Weve consistently liked ExpressVPN because its fast, easy to use and widely available across a large global server network. In fact, it's our current pick for best premium VPN . One of the biggest drawbacks h

While many of us wait (im)patiently for a brand new Mario platformer for the Switch 2, Nintendo is filling the gap with an upgraded version of the tremendous Super Mario Bros. Wonder for the console. Super Mario Bros. Wonder Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park (to give the new edition's full name) will arrive on March 26. Those who own the original Switch version of the game will be able to buy an upgrade pack, which costs $20. There's a lot of new stuff in the Switch 2 version,

Ahead of its upcoming price hike , Spotify is rolling out a more advanced AI playlist feature in the US and Canada. Prompted Playlist, which the company trialed in New Zealand late last year , lets subscribers control the Spotify algorithm, as the company describes it. You're not just asking for music, you're shaping how Spotify goes about discovering it for you. For example, you can guide it to make a playlist of songs you've saved to your Library but haven't listened to yet. (It can tap into y

Scarlett Johannsson, R.E.M., Vince Gilligan and over 700 other artists are demanding that tech companies stop stealing their work in order to train AI models. A new campaign called Stealing isnt Innovation demands that AI companies take the responsible, ethical route through licensing and partnerships, according to the website. Americas creative community is the envy of the world and creates jobs, economic growth and exports, a statement on the website reads. But rather than respect and protec

1Password has a new tool designed to counteract the advantages AI has given to phishing scammers. A new feature for the company's browser extension gives you a second pair of eyes to help you catch a bogus website before entering your login info. Before AI, phishing attempts often included telltale signs like obvious typos or rudimentary graphic design. Now that AI makes it much easier to design and code convincingly, scams are on the rise. According to Fortune , 60 percent of companies reported

A new year is the perfect time to get your spending in order, and if you're not trying to build your own spreadsheet, budgeting apps are one of the best ways to do it. To save yourself some money in the process, you can pick up a year-long subscription to Monarch Money , one of Engadget's favorite budgeting apps , for just $50 if you use code NEWYEAR2026 at checkout and you're a new subscriber. That's a 50 percent discount on the service's normal $100 price. Monarch Money makes for a capable and

The peak time for deals on streaming services the holiday shopping season has come and gone, but Disney is back with a fresh offer for the new year. New and eligible returning subscribers can get one month of the ad-supported Disney+ Hulu bundle for just $10. That's $3 off the usual monthly rate for the bundle, and more than 58 percent off if you consider the prices for each service individually (Disney+ at $12 per month and, separately, Hulu also at $12 per month). We'd be remiss if we didn't

If you're thinking about upgrading to a new graphics card this year, your window for doing so at MSRP has closed. When I first reported on this at the start of December, things were looking bleak but you could still find GPUs from both AMD and NVIDIA at close to their recommended prices. That changed last week when YouTube channel Hardware Unboxed reported that ASUS had stopped producing the RTX 5070 Ti and 5060 Ti 16GB due to ongoing memory shortages. After Engadget published the news, NVIDIA d

Snapchat is updating its parental control features to give parents more detailed information about who their kids are connecting with in the app and which features they use the most. The app's Family Center already gives parents visibility into their child's friend list, but it will now surface contextual details when a new friend is added. For example, the feature could highlight that the two share mutual friends or have each other's contact info saved in their phones. It could also indicate th

If you're looking to get fit, sleep better or just keep a closer eye on your health, a fitness wearable is a great place to start. Whether you're into intense workouts or just want to hit your step goal each day, the best fitness trackers available today can offer loads of helpful features, from sleep tracking and resting heart rate monitoring to built-in GPS and stress tracking. Some are even subtle enough to wear 24/7, like smart rings, while others double as stylish smartwatches. There are gr

Sports fans who want to catch every last game and news junkies who want to watch network news as it unfolds have two main options: cable or a live TV streaming service. Cable or satellite service often requires extra equipment and convoluted contracts. Live TV streaming services only require an internet connection and a smart TV. These plans used to be cheaper and more user-friendly, too, but price hikes , media consolidation and contract disputes are starting to change the value a bit. We teste

X is rolling out a new feature called Starterpacks to all users in the coming weeks, the companys head of product has announced. Its made up of compilations of accounts new users can follow based on their interests. If that sounds familiar, its because Bluesky launched a very similar feature thats also called starter packs back in 2024. Bluesky allows ordinary users to curate their own packs as long as each one doesnt exceed 50 accounts. They can then share those lists broadly on the platform or

Marshall plans to add seamless multi-room audio to its Bluetooth speakers via a newly announced music streaming hub called Heddon . The $300 hub makes it possible to connect and synchronize multiple older Marshall speakers together, not unlike Sonos' audio devices. Rather than use Wi-Fi to get multiple speakers playing the same audio, though, the Marshall Heddon uses Auracast . The hub connects to services like Spotify Connect or Tidal over Wi-Fi, or other devices through Google Cast and AirPlay

Apple has been spinning its wheels for many months over its approach to artificial intelligence, but a strategy finally appears to be emerging for the company. Bloomberg 's Mark Gurman reported today that Apple's long-awaited Siri overhaul will allegedly involve transforming the voice assistant into an AI chatbot, internally called Campos. Sources have reportedly told Gurman that Apple chatbot will completely replace the current Siri interface in favor of a more interactive model similar to thos

Apple will reportedly try to succeed where Humane failed (miserably) . On Wednesday, The Information reported that the iPhone maker is working on an AI pin. The wearable is said to resemble a slightly thicker AirTag and include multiple cameras, a speaker, microphones, and wireless charging. The report coincides with another from Bloomberg that claims that Apple will revamp Siri as a ChatGPT-style chatbot. When combined with the recent announcement that Google's Gemini will power Siri AI , it lo

Microsoft has announced that the Xbox app is now available on all Arm-based Windows 11 PCs. The app's release follows an update Microsoft made to its Prism emulator in December 2025, which translates x86 and x64 apps to Arm, and now includes support for AVX and AVX2. Both extensions play a role in making games run efficiently on Windows. Windows on Arm users will be able to use the Xbox app to purchase, download and stream PC games, and Microsoft says that more than 85 percent of the Game Pass c

Threads has grown enough for Meta to fully integrate it into its advertising machine. On Wednesday, the company said that, with the platform now hosting 400 million monthly active users, ads are expanding globally to all users. The inevitable move follows a test in 30 countries early last year. Ads on Threads are powered by Meta's AI-powered advertising system. They'll use the same level of personalization (i.e., tracking and profiling) as Facebook and Instagram. Image, video and carousel ad for

Apple TV+ has become one of the best streaming services for sci-fi, with hits like Pluribus , Severance , Foundation and many more. There are so many shows that it's easy to forget the one that started it all. For All Mankind was the platform's very first attempt at sci-fi and it's finally coming back after two years for season five on March 27. The next season will run for ten episodes on a weekly basis. It concludes on May 29, with new installments dropping each Friday. What follows are some s

Amazon is introducing an AI-powered assistant to One Medical, the tech-forward primary care provider it acquired in 2023 . Dubbed 'Health AI,' Amazon says the tool provides 24/7 personalized health guidance based on your medical records. The company says Health AI can explain lab results, help manage medications, and book appointments for patients. Amazon also says it can analyze images but doesn't specify whether this means medical imaging or user uploaded photos. While the company specifically

Two high-profile upcoming Ubisoft games have been starting to look more and more like vaporware with each passing year. One of them is Beyond Good & Evil 2 , which we were assured is still in development last year. The other is the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake, which is now officially canceled, along with five other games on Ubisofts release slate. The news came in a media briefing attended virtually by VGC , in which the French company also announced delays to seven other games as

Elon Musk is reportedly looking to finally take SpaceX public after years of resistance, according to sources who spoke to The Wall Street Journal . The company has long said it wouldn't choose an IPO until it had established a presence on Mars. That isn't happening anytime soon . So why now? Company insiders have suggested it's because Musk wants to build AI data centers in space. Google recently announced it was looking into putting a data center in space , with test launches scheduled for 20

The festive lights, time off and cute scarfs can only conceal the truth for so long: Winter can be pretty bleak. I don't mean to be a downer, but it's cold all of the time, dark most of the time and this lasts far beyond the most wonderful time of the year. Here at Engadget, we've tried so many tools and products to make winter more bearable from therapy lamps to heaters . We've invested in tea sets, wrapped ourselves in heated blankets and learned to grow herbs indoors really, anything that wi

YouTube is just as wary of the rise of AI slop as you, and thats why more AI-generated content is coming to the platform in the near future. In a lengthy blog post outlining YouTubes 2026 plans, CEO Neal Mohan said the company will continue to embrace this new creative frontier by soon allowing its creators to throw together Shorts using their AI-generated likeness. Mohan didnt elaborate further about how this feature will work when it launches, but acknowledged the critical issue of deepfakes c

I vividly remember when Bose announced the Ultra Open Earbuds . While I applauded the company for trying something different, I wasnt sure if the clip-on design would take hold. Well, here we are almost two years later and most earbud makers now have something akin to Boses fashion experiment . You can now count Sony among those as the company revealed its LinkBuds Clip ($230) open-fit earbuds today. These arent the first open-wear earbuds in Sonys LinkBuds lineup. The company has two generation

Tax season is fast approaching, and unfortunately for 2026, Direct File isn't an option anymore . The free, government-provided service was shut down, so you'll need to look to other federal programs, including IRS Free File , to file your paperwork. If you don't qualify for Free File , TurboTax might be your best bet for a relatively cheap, efficient way to file your taxes. While it pains us to suggest you give money to a company that has spent decades lobbying to ensure America's tax system re

One of the disconcerting things about using a virtual private network (VPN) is that it can be hard to tell when it's doing its job. The best VPNs all work in the background to keep your IP address hidden and your communications with their servers encrypted. The better the VPN, the less you notice it, which can make a top-performing VPN feel (uncomfortably) like one that isn't working at all. Luckily, you've got options for checking whether your VPN is working other than just taking the app at i

Samsungs 2025 was filled with new foldables , an ultra-thin new form factor and the launch of Google's XR platform . After making some announcements at CES 2026 , the company is expected to host its first Galaxy Unpacked of the year in February to introduce the Galaxy S26 lineup. Engadget will be covering Galaxy Unpacked live, and we'll most likely have hands-on coverage of Samsung's new smartphones soon after they're announced. While we wait for an official invite, here's everything we expect S

After testing the feature for the last six months or so, Netflix said it will bring vertical videos to its mobile app sometime later in 2026, TechCrunch reported. So far, the feature has been used to show clips promoting Netflix films and TV shows, letting you swipe to move to the next one la TikTok or YouTube Shorts. Going forward, though, it could also serve as a promotion tool for new types of programs. You can imagine us bringing more clips based on new content types, like video podcasts, c

Looking to keep your home clean without having to vacuum and mop every day, pick up dirt, the dinner your child threw on the floor or your furry friends endless pet hair? Join the club. Smart home gadgets have come a long way over the years, and that includes robot vacuums. With newer technology including voice controls, object detection and more automation features, investing in a robot vacuum cleaner makes more sense now than ever before. Some of the best robot vacuum cleaners even have moppin