Gadgets

After first teasing their designs last November, the $99.99 E Ink and $89.99 Pixel Matrix magnetic faceplates are now available for preorder from Jsaux’s online store. The Verge’s Sean Hollister got some hands-on time with both displays and while the colorful pixelated faceplate needs a constant USB-C connection to the console, the E Ink is wireless with Bluetooth and a battery.

If you’re worried about the green LEDs being a bigger distraction in a dark theater now that the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 measure your heart rate every five seconds, Theater Mode now reduces readings to five minute intervals while still silencing alerts and keeping the screen off. But you can override that new feature in the Apple Watch’s settings to restore the continuous monitoring.

While the Mac mini M4’s SSD was easily removable and upgradeable, the NAND module on the new Mac mini M6 and M5 Pro is soldered to the logic board, according to a blog post by Expand Mac mini. That’s the same approach Apple took with the Mac mini M1, M2, and M3.

The original Yashica Y16 debuted in 1959 as a 16mm film camera but the company is reviving it as a 12-megapixel retro digital shooter with an added LCD display on the back. Pricing hasn’t been announced ahead of preorders opening in October, but the new Y16 will still feature a bright Xenon flash instead of using LEDs.

The new Theragun Mini Y2K Collection exposes the Theragun Mini 3’s tech through a new translucent shell with color options inspired by the original iMac G3. The colors launching today through Therabody’s online store for $229.99 each include blue raspberry, grape blast, orange crush, strawberry splash, and green apple.

If you have one of Birdfy’s smart birdwatching devices, you can tune into its video feed on the biggest screen in the house now on the Roku version of the Birdfy companion app.

Insta360’s Luna Ultra and the DJI Osmo Pocket 4P added telephoto lenses to baby steadycams this year. The Ultra’s zoom originally offered 3x optical, 6x lossless crop, or 12x with reduction in detail, but a firmware update now gives you an AI-enhanced 15x. Or make it 4.5x optical and up to 22.5x zoom by adding the new $50 “Ultra Telephoto Lens,” too:

As I mention in my Googlebook hands-on piece, Google’s new laptop OS has clever ideas about how an Android-based laptop and an Android phone interact. It’s worth checking out in motion, like in our short video that went up today.

MediaTek is announcing its new Dimensity CX C10 Max processor. It’s an Arm-based chip built on TSMC’s 3nm process, with an 8-core CPU, 11-core GPU, and an NPU capable of up to 55 TOPS. This will be MediaTek’s Googlebook chip, as it’s designed for thin-and-light laptops like the five initial Googlebooks that were just announced.

The TimeXplayer V2 shrinks a two-button mouse with a scroll wheel down to the size of a matchbook, including a 2.4GHz USB receiver hidden inside. But it’s also got Bluetooth so you can connect it to your phone and use it as an alternative to the Boox Tappy as a handheld remote for doomscrolling or reading.

The price increase reportedly follows higher prices from chip manufacturer TSMC, and could impact everything from AMD’s GPUs to its motherboard chipsets. Intel is reportedly planning a similar price hike, and Qualcomm and Nvidia also raised prices earlier this year.

After 100 years this Leica I was suffering from light leaks as a result of shutter curtains that had become porous. This satisfying ASMR video shares the two and a half hour process of the camera being disassembled, cleaned, repaired, and put back together by an expert technician.

HBO’s Hacks was a magnet for well-deserved Emmys, and I was personally delighted to hear that the complete series would come to Blu-ray. The set recently went up for preorder, costing $69.99 at Amazon, and includes cast screen tests, deleted scenes, bloopers, table reads, and more detailed at Blu-ray.com.

They’ve opened “at least one criminal probe” following complaints about the glasses being used to film women on the street in public without their consent, Reuters reports. France’s data protection authority also says businesses are “increasingly” asking if they can ban smart glasses at work, similar to a ban under consideration in Australia.

Clicks is offering another updated look at the much-awaited Communicator and a couple of pleasant surprises for those who have already pre-ordered the device: more RAM, a slightly bigger battery, and Android 17 included as standard.

The annual Small World in Motion Competition has yielded another five bangers. The first place entry used a 100X magnification to capture the abnormal airway cilia inside a child with a genetic disorder affecting respiratory function. Sad, but beautiful. ABC News (Australia) has a roundup.

If you’re looking for a GPU upgrade, but don’t want to shell out $800 or more for an RTX 5070, Newegg has the Gigabyte RX 9070 GRE, a capable card for 1440p gaming, discounted to $500 when you click “Extra discount available. Unlock it here” on the product page and then enter your email. The deal also includes Onimusha: Way of the Sword, although you’ll have to redeem the code by October 24th, 2026.

Want to win the gadgets I call in for my Today I’m Toying With videos? I boxed up the latest three winners’ items yesterday, and we’re now on TITW Giveaway #12! If you’re in the US you can enter to win right here anytime before 9AM ET Wednesday, or via our email entry option.

Late last night, we published my video about trying Snap’s Specs AR glasses at the company’s headquarters. The hardware, which costs $2,195, is interesting, but the experience of actually using them was rather finicky. Despite yesterday’s splashy launch event, the Specs also don’t yet have a firm release date beyond sometime this fall.