Removable Bosch batteries like the ones on this Gazelle Eclipse would be rendered useless if stolen. | Image: Gazelle Electric bikes built around Bosch’s smart drive systems will be getting a new digital Battery Lock function this summer that would make stolen batteries worthless to thieves looking to make a quick buck. Great idea — if only Bosch wasn’t being so greedy with the rollout.Battery theft is a major issue. I’ve personally had to replace two stolen e-bike batteries here in the Netherlands, where over half of all new bicycles sold are electric. The mechanical locks protecting all those removable batteries can be defeated with force, costing owners anywhere from $300 to $1,000 — in the case of e-bikes built around Bosch systems — to replace the stolen battery, in addition to any costs required to repair the broken housing.Bosch says that Battery Lock supports several digital keys that can be used simultaneously — in the form of the Bosch Flow app and Kiox 300 and Kiox 500 bike displays — or disabled to share batteries with family and friends. The digital lock is compatible with all batteries in the Bosch smart system, including DualBatteries and the PowerMore 250 Range Extender. Once activated, Battery Lock will engage automatically when a Bosch-based e-bike is turned off. “If a locked battery is inserted into another e-bike with the smart system, it automatically deactivates its motor support and renders the entire e-bike unusable for the thief,” says Bosch in a press release. “This also makes reselling the battery pointless, which reduces the risk of theft.”In other words, once thieves realize there’s no market for the stolen Bosch batteries, they’ll stop trying to steal them. It’s all part of Bosch’s “vision of ensuring that no e-bike with a Bosch system is stolen in the future.” Great! Image: Bosch This Bosch PowerTube 800 smart system battery costs $1,000, making it a prime target for thieves. Here’s the catch: Battery Lock requires a Flow Plus subscription, according to Bosch:Battery Lock can be installed over-the-air as usual on any Bosch e-bike with the smart system via the e-bike Flow app and will be available from summer 2025 as part of the Flow+ subscription.This is dumb. To be an effective theft deterrent, Battery Lock needs to be active on all Bosch smart system batteries, whether the owner subscribes to Flow Plus or not. Otherwise, there will still be a sizable resale market for thieves to profit from. Bosch does offer owners a free year of Flow Plus, which then costs $35 / £35 / €40 each year thereafter. It makes sense to put premium services like an e-bike alarm with GPS tracking and notifications behind Flow Plus, like Bosch does now. But Bosch smart drive e-bikes already feature an integrated system lock that requires a digital key to activate the motor — no subscription required — and the same should be true for Battery Lock if the company’s zero-theft vision is to be believed.

Melania Trump at Mar-a-Lago on New Year’s Eve. | Photo by Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images Amazon Prime Video has licensed a documentary about Melania Trump that will be directed by Rush Hour director Brett Ratner, reports Variety. A Prime Video spokesperson told the outlet that the movie will be an “unprecedented, behind-the-scenes look” at the first lady. The news comes after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos had dinner with Donald Trump, who was heavily critical of the company during his first term. It also follows the decision by Bezos and Amazon to donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, just as other tech CEOs like Apple’s Tim Cook and OpenAI’s Sam Altman have done. Prime Video is also set to livestream Trump’s inauguration.The film is the first significant Hollywood project that Ratner has taken on since 2017, when several women accused him of sexual misconduct and another of rape, Variety notes. He denied the allegations but parted ways with Warner Bros. Ratner has some notable ties to the Trumps, including a former partnership with Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin. He also filmed 2011’s Tower Heist largely on-location at Trump International Hotel & Tower and has reportedly run in Mar-a-Lago social circles since his departure from Hollywood life.Amazon’s Melania Trump documentary has already begun filming and the company plans to give it theatrical and streaming releases starting in the second half of this year, Variety writes.

The Hormometer is meant to be a one-step at-home test for cortisol and progesterone levels. | Image: Eli Health If you’re health-conscious, chances are your feed for the past year has been flooded with influencers evangelizing hormone balancing as a hack for easy weight loss, lowering stress levels, and even reversing symptoms of hormonal conditions like polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). So it’s not at all surprising to see Eli Health announce Hormometer, an at-home hormone-testing system that uses your spit and your smartphone’s camera to measure hormone levels. Like many at-home tests, Hormometer requires you to take a sample of bodily fluid. In this case, it’s saliva. It consists of a thin cartridge that you stick in your mouth for 60 seconds. It looks similar to a pregnancy test, with a window where you can view results. Once collected, the Eli app uses your phone’s camera to assess the test’s results based on criteria like color intensity and sample patterns. Depending on the test and results, Eli Health says the app will then provide personalized trends and recommendations related to stress, sleep, athletic performance, and fertility. To start, Eli Health says it’s offering two types of hormone tests: cortisol and progesterone. Cortisol is commonly known as the stress hormone and plays a critical role in regulating fight or flight response, blood pressure, blood sugar, metabolism, and sleep cycles. Long-term imbalances, both high and low, are often linked with negative health outcomes including Cushing’s syndrome, unintentional weight gain / loss, fatigue, Type 2 diabetes, and abnormal blood pressure. Meanwhile, progesterone is a reproductive hormone. Abnormal levels can result in irregular periods, fertility problems, and depression. Image: Eli Health The tests don’t require you to mail in samples. You can just use your phone to get results. Eli Health’s tests are a reflection of recent health and wellness trends. Connected at-home testing kits, for example, saw a rise in popularity at the height of the covid-19 pandemic. Though expensive, smart over-the-counter PCR tests like Cue Health became a major part of some tech companies’ return-to-office plans, thanks to their convenience and accuracy.Similarly, a big part of Hormometer’s appeal is its portability and accessibility. Traditionally, hormone tests have to be sent to a lab and are often taken at a doctor’s office. That can take several days or weeks. They can also be messy if they’re urine-based or invasive if blood-based. The advantage of this type of test is it doesn’t require another party and can turn around results more quickly. As far as cost, Eli Health says Hormometer will come with a subscription plan, starting at $8 monthly with a 12-month commitment. That’s competitive with other at-home hormone tests, which can range from roughly $30 to $250 and require people to mail in samples. Meanwhile, balancing hormone levels, particularly cortisol, has become a viral wellness trend. Tips to fix “cortisol face,” for example, ran rampant on TikTok throughout 2024. However, experts have decried hormone balancing as both misleading and potentially harmful — hormones can’t truly be balanced, as they’re dynamic and naturally ebb and flow throughout the day. That said, these tests could help people with official diagnoses of chronic hormonal or reproductive health issues monitor their conditions. A lot of that will depend on accuracy. According to Eli Health, the Hormometer is FDA registered. To be clear, this is different than clearance or approval. It doesn’t mean the FDA has reviewed or cosigned Eli Health’s claims. That said, the company claims that its cortisol and progesterone tests had a 97 percent and 94 percent agreement with gold-standard, FDA-approved lab tests in third-party testing, respectively. Eli Health says Hormometer will begin beta access this month in the US and Canada. A full release is expected later this year. And while Hormometer is currently limited to cortisol and progesterone, the company says it’s already developing testosterone and estradiol tests for the future.

When this is all you have to type with, you need new keyboard ideas. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Typing on a TV sucks. Those long and / or scrambled on-screen keyboards are both a nuisance to use, and a real problem for anyone wanting to make stuff for your TV.At CES 2025, I was just introduced to a better way. It’s made by a company called Direction9, which has been working on the system for about a year, and it starts with a very old way of typing: T9. T9 was created by necessity, back in the days when cellphones’ only buttons were the number keys. (Here’s a demo for the uninitiated.) TVs are similarly constrained by their directional pad — on most set-top boxes and smart TVs there’s no other way to type. The Direction9 system works like this: all the letters are arrayed in a three-by-three number grid, with multiple letters assigned to each number, just like T9. When you open the keyboard, your cursor defaults to the middle, and you click around to the letter you’re looking for. Every time you click the middle button to select a letter, the cursor jumps back to the center, which means you’re always only a click or two from the letter you’re looking for. You can use the keyboard a “smart” mode, which tries to predict which word you’re looking for — click... Read the full story at The Verge.

I use several devices throughout the day, including an Android phone, a Windows PC, and a MacBook. These devices run entirely different operating systems, and cross-compatibility between them is quite limited. Moving text from Android to Windows is relatively easy with the SwiftKey app, but the same cannot be said when syncing the clipboard with a Mac. Similarly, syncing the clipboard between a Windows PC and a Mac isn't very straightforward either.

The IrriSense smart sprinkler can be installed in 15 minutes with a garden hose and power cable. | Image: Aiper Aiper has announced a new smart watering solution at CES 2025 that could be as easy to set up as a traditional lawn sprinkler. The IrriSense Smart Irrigation Sprinkler doesn’t require any pipes to be buried under a yard, and as an all-in-one device, it doesn’t need additional hardware to be installed on a faucet. Its targeted approach to watering also limits overspray, reducing water usage.The IrriSense Smart Irrigation Sprinkler will be available starting in May 2025 for $399. It includes a 33-foot-long waterproof power cord that needs access to an outlet, but you’ll need to provide a standard garden hose long enough to reach a faucet. Installation and setup takes about 15 minutes, according to Aiper, which involves the IrriSense sprinkler being secured using four ground stakes that can be pulled up when you need to relocate or temporarily remove the sprinkler to cut the grass. Image: Aiper The sprinkler’s targeted spray pattern can be defined in a mobile app, while watering schedules take into account recent weather conditions and rainfall. The sprinkler’s blast can reach 39 feet and cover an area up to 4,300 square feet as it oscillates back and forth. Through the Aiper mobile app, you can customize the spray pattern by creating a map through a manual process that involves pinpointing locations around your yard. The goal is to not only reduce water consumption but also help keep certain areas dry, such as a public sidewalk on your front lawn.The IrriSense sprinkler’s routine can be scheduled through the mobile app, but for additional conservation and to prevent overwatering, it can also take into account the weather. There’s a sensor on the sprinkler itself as well as separate soil sensors that can keep track of moisture levels. If the lawn is still properly hydrated from a recent rain, scheduled watering routines will be skipped.Multiple IrriSense sprinklers can be installed and automated to expand the coverage area, and they can be used to dispense liquid fertilizers or pesticides.

Windows Notepad continues to get new features. In fact, there is a lot more to it than you would think. There are several new features in Notepad in Windows 11, such as tabs, emojis, spell-check, dark mode, and more. Microsoft has also injected AI into the utility, allowing the ability to rewrite text in Notepad. But while it keeps gaining new abilities, one trick you might not know about is creating time-stamped logs.

Image: Current Backyard There’s a hot new smart pizza oven in town that’ll let you cook a 12-inch pizza in your apartment in two minutes. The $599 Current Backyard Model P electric pizza oven works both indoors and out, can customize cook time based on pizza construction, and has both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for remote monitoring.And it really is hot for an electric oven — Current Backyard says the Model P has a maximum temperature of 850 degrees Fahrenheit, allowing it to cook Neapolitan-style pizzas in two minutes. It comes with a 12-inch cordierite cooking stone and features specific modes for broiling and cooking Neapolitan, New York, thin crust, and frozen pizza. The Wi-Fi connection also enables users to step away for a few minutes while continuing to monitor and control the oven with an app. Image: Current Backyard At least two colors are available: silver (pictured) or a darker gray. Current Backyard says the Model P uses a proprietary algorithm to keep heat uniform within the oven and prevent users from needing to turn pizzas while they cook, something that’s generally recommended with pizza ovens from competitors like Ooni. The Model P smart app controls also include a “Pizza Build Calculator” that works out the optimal cooking time and temperature based on dough thickness and the quantity of sauce, cheese, and other toppings.“The Model P Smart Pizza Oven isn’t just about making pizza — it’s about eliminating limitations,” says Current Backyard CEO Tom Penner. “Whether you live in an apartment or have a backyard kitchen, this oven adapts to your lifestyle, offering unparalleled convenience, performance, and flavor.”

Image: Govee Govee is launching a new pixel light grid that can display art, animations, and live data. The Gaming Pixel Light lets you upload your own images and GIFs to display or choose from 150 different data sources, letting it provide live updates on the weather, Bitcoin prices, NBA scores, and more.You can also sync the display to games you’re playing by hooking it up to Govee’s HDMI sync box or play 8-bit tunes that sync to the pixel grid using the built-in speaker. Naturally, there’s an AI component as well — an accompanying app can generate new pixel art for you using Govee’s “AI Lighting Bot.” Image: Govee You can generate pixel art with Govee’s “AI Lighting Bot.” The Gaming Pixel Light is compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. You can wall-mount the screen or place it atop a table or desk, making it seem like a neat little addition to a gaming room or office.Along with this pixel light, Govee is announcing the Table Lamp 2 Pro — an LED-packed tabletop lamp with a 2.5-inch JBL speaker that syncs up lighting with your music. The portable device has 210 independently controlled LED beads and 600 lumens of brightness. When it’s not synced with your music, you can customize the lighting yourself or choose from 100 preset scenes. Image: Govee The Table Lamp 2 Pro comes with a 2.5-inch JBL speaker. The lamp works with Matter, Google Assistant, and Alexa and comes with a rechargeable battery. You can also link two lamps together for a “full stereo surround experience.” Govee says it will release the Gaming Pixel Light and the Table Lamp 2 Pro in the second quarter of 2025, but it didn’t provide any pricing information.

With technology on the rise and everything we do living on digital devices, it is more crucial than ever to ensure your data is secure from sophisticated attacks by malware, viruses, and ransomware. Microsoft has a built-in mechanism on Windows 11 to protect your data called Controlled Folder Access (CFA).

The company created a sensation by making TVs that look more like art and less like tech. With The Frame Pro, Samsung is trying to deliver the best of both worlds. Samsung’s The Frame has been enormously popular ever since its release. There’s no shortage of imitators at this point, with other manufacturers trying their hand at creating a TV that seamlessly blends in with home decor and can also convincingly look like wall art when idle. But none have captured lightning in a bottle quite like Samsung. And in 2025, Samsung is looking to fend off copycats by introducing The Frame Pro. With the artwork side of things well handled, now the company is aiming to make The Frame Pro a good TV for everything else. The Frame has nailed the aesthetics and style from the start. People buy it for the vibe more than anything else. But as a TV, it’s always just been, well... fine. There wasn’t much wow factor in terms of brightness or the overall picture quality that came with the nice design. That might be changing now.There are two main upgrades that put the “pro” in The Frame Pro. First, Samsung is moving to Mini LED, which the company says will give The Frame Pro a boost in contrast, brightness, and black levels. The regular Frame, which isn’t going anywhere, has never offered any local dimming to speak of. But there’s an important caveat: this isn’t Mini LED in the regular sense. Normally, Mini LED TVs contain a ton of small dimming zones behind the screen. This lets them be way more precise in lighting up only the sections of the display that need it while preserving black levels and shadow detail elsewhere. The Frame Pro doesn’t do that. The Frame Pro uses Mini LEDs, but they’re at the bottom of the panel — not behind it. Instead, Samsung is placing Mini LEDs along the bottom of the screen, while claiming that this approach still produces some level of local dimming. To me, it all still very much sounds like an edge-lit TV. But I’ll give this “Mini LED” tech a fair chance whenever I get one in for review.Samsung is also boosting The Frame Pro’s maximum refresh rate from 120Hz to 144Hz, so PC gamers can get even smoother visuals than before. But if you were hoping “pro” might finally mean Dolby Vision support, that’s still a no.The Frame has always been something of a compromise; maybe you’ve got a significant other who refuses to allow a dull black rectangle into the living room. So you, being the good and considerate person you are, ultimately agree to “settle” on The Frame. After first hearing about The Frame Pro, I was hopeful that it would be much less of a compromise. But this asterisk around Mini LED has me a little less excited. Like recent models, The Frame Pro’s display has a matte finish to give your preferred art a more authentic appearance and mask the reality that you’re looking at a screen. But matte screens can sometimes lessen a display’s punch, so genuine Mini LED backlighting could’ve helped quite a bit in that regard. There’s no more wire running from Samsung’s breakout box to the actual TV. You plug your game consoles, streaming boxes, and other devices into the Wireless One Connect Box. The second major improvement is that The Frame Pro no longer has a thin wire running between it and Samsung’s breakout box that houses all the HDMI inputs and the TV’s other brains: that connection has gone fully wireless. This will result in an even cleaner look with less cable clutter. And the Wireless One Connect Box, which supports up to Wi-Fi 7, eliminates yet another telltale sign that The Frame Pro is a television. Now, all you’ve got to worry about concealing is the display’s power cord. Samsung says the wireless connection between the box and TV works at distances of up to 10 meters, “even with obstacles in its path.” The Wireless One Connect Box can be placed up to 10 meters away. The Frame Pro is also getting the same litany of AI-powered features as Samsung’s other 2025 TVs. AI is such a focus this year that there’s a dedicated button on the remote for activating Click to Search, which can show you “who the actors are in a given scene, where that scene is taking place, or even the clothing the characters are wearing,” according to Samsung’s press release. A new Samsung Food feature can recognize dishes onscreen and provide you with the recipes to make them — or something in the same ballpark, at least. Beyond that, the company is dialing up its AI-enhanced picture and sound optimizations, and AI is also reaching into accessibility features like Live Translate, which can “instantly translate closed captions on live broadcasts in up to seven languages.” That’s very neat.The critical question is one I can’t answer yet: how much will this thing cost? How much more expensive will The Frame Pro be compared to the regular model? Samsung won’t be sharing pricing details until closer to the spring when it ships. If the company gets cocky and goes too high, that could ruin a lot of the appeal here. But if you already know that some version of The Frame is in your future, you’re probably very happy that The Frame Pro now exists.Photography by Chris Welch / The Verge

Targus-owned Hyper introduced the HyperSpace Trackpad Pro, a premium haptic trackpad for Windows, on Sunday. The company plans to add basic compatibility with macOS via a firmware update later this year.Like the Magic Trackpad does on a Mac and other precision trackpads do on Windows laptops, the wireless HyperSpace Trackpad Pro supports multitouch gestures. However, Hyper’s trackpad software grants Windows users an advanced level of customizability, with the ability to set up shortcuts in the trackpad’s corners. That includes general functions like copying and pasting but also specific actions within apps like Adobe Suite, Figma, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint. For instance, users could customize the trackpad’s bottom-right corner so clicking on it will add a new slide in PowerPoint. Users can also create and assign their own gestures instead, assigning — in Hyper’s example — a two-finger deep click to enter presentation mode in PowerPoint. Hyper also lets users adjust the haptic feedback and pressure sensitivity, tweak the click force, and create customizable sound modes. After they’re done, they can share these custom configurations or discover others via the “Hyper Learning Cloud” community.The trackpad has other things going for it beyond customizability. Hyper says it has independent force detection for up to 10 fingers as opposed to Apple’s four. It also features a 240Hz report rate, which should allow for high responsiveness and extremely smooth tracking. Finally, the trackpad can support multiple devices and comes with detachable magnetic palm rests.The HyperSpace Trackpad Pro will arrive in the second quarter of 2025 and cost $129.99, the same as Apple’s Magic Trackpad.