If you're deep in the world of competitive FPS games, there's a good chance you're very conscious about how many kills you get in a game. After all, the venerable kill-death ratio has been a rough gauge for someone's skill for years now, so if you don't want to look bad, you have to start scoring more points than the enemy can score off you.

One of the challenges I face with task apps is dealing with information overload — the amount of things I need to get done feels overwhelming and I struggle to prioritize what's important.

For power users and digital ink enthusiasts, Microsoft OneNote often feels like a ‘jack of all trades, master of none.’ If you have been struggling with unpredictable palm rejection, fighting against the rigid infinite canvas that breaks during printing, or wishing for more control over stroke pressure and layering, it’s time to look toward Xournal++.

Vex is a stubby little critter that comes in a few different colors. For a long time, tech companies have pitched pet cameras as a way to find out what your furball is up to when you're not home. Vex, a new robot companion launched at CES this week, takes that a step further: it follows your pet around, filming as it goes, and uses AI smarts to stitch together a video from the footage.Vex is a small white sphere that comes with cute, stubby limbs, ears, and accessories in a range of colors. It's compact enough to hold in one hand, so will almost certainly be smaller than whatever pet you want it to film.It's autonomous enough to follow your cat or dog around the house and play with them, and uses visual r …Read the full story at The Verge.

Family Hub fridges are getting a new hands-free feature. Samsung's latest update to its Family Hub smart fridge line adds a feature I've always wanted - voice-activated door opening and closing. Using the device's built-in Bixby voice control, you will soon be able to say "Shut the fridge door," or "Open the door," and your machine will obey. According to a press release from Samsung at CES 2026 this week, the voice commands will open the door fully, not just a smidge - over 90 degrees. You can also tap the door with the palm or the back of your hand to activate the movement.This could be super helpful when cooking, say when your hands are dirty and you want to get the milk out. It's also a …Read the full story at The Verge.

The days of trying to perfectly jot down everything the speaker says (and accidentally missing a significant chunk of the call) are becoming a thing of the past. Now, most professionals rely on AI-powered meeting assistants like Fireflies AI and Otter, which can join meetings with you, transcribe conversations, and automatically generate summaries.

The LG OLED evo W6 Wallpaper TV. The amazingly thin wallpaper design from LG is back. The first Wallpaper TV was released back in 2017, and it's been six years since we saw the last one. But LG has revived the product line with the LG OLED evo W6, and I've seen it here at CES.The TV body is only 9mm thick (which is actually a bit more than the last model), thanks to a completely reengineered internal architecture. A new wall mount also allows the TV to sit completely flush against the wall, and the W6 uses the Zero Connect Box, so no cable is needed between the TV and box (although the TV will still need to be plugged in for power). The Zero Connect Box can be placed up t …Read the full story at The Verge.

It’s only available in one color option. | Image: Ikea Ikea has released the most affordable version of its Sjöss USB-C chargers yet. Following an $8 30W version that launched in 2024 and a $35 65W option that debuted earlier this year, the new 20W Sjöss is now available online and through many of Ikea's physical US stores for just $3.99.That's considerably cheaper than Apple's $19 20W USB-C Power Adapter while being comparable in size, and cheaper than Anker's $11.99 Nano Pro 20W USB-C charger. However, Ikea's new $4 charger is much larger than Anker's, and is about 26 grams heavier. If you're a traveler trying to pack as light as possible, Anker's may be the better choice. If you're a travel …Read the full story at The Verge.

A tablet wherever your phone goes. Holding the Z TriFold confirmed my suspicions: It's a tablet with a phone attached. And after spending an hour folding and unfolding it, I'm pretty much ready to trade in the single-hinge foldable I've been carrying for the past couple of weeks.I used the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold over the holidays as my daily driver, and I can probably count on one hand the number of times I unfolded it. Nobody in my family even realized that it unfolded for at least the first 24 hours when I used it on a trip back home. On a different kind of trip, with different circumstances, I probably would have unfolded it more. But after spending some time with the …Read the full story at The Verge.

The Birdbuddy 2 goes for $199. Birdbuddy is introducing two new smart bird feeders: the flagship Birdbuddy 2 and the more compact, cheaper Birdbuddy 2 Mini aimed at first-time users and smaller outdoor spaces. Both models are designed to be faster and easier to use than previous generations, with upgraded cameras that can shoot in portrait or landscape and wake instantly when a bird lands so you're less likely to miss the good stuff.The Birdbuddy 2 costs $199 and features a redesigned circular camera housing that delivers 2K HDR video, slow-motion recording, and a wider 135-degree field of view. The upgraded built-in mic should also better pick up birdsong, which could …Read the full story at The Verge.

Xthings is rolling into CES with a bunch of new gear, including two new smart locks and a few smart security cameras. It's definitely the Ultraloq Bolt Sense that's the most intriguing of the bunch, however. It's a relatively compact smart deadbolt that combines facial recognition with palm vein authentication for touch-free access, without resorting to an app. While palm scanning is still relatively new to the consumer market, Xthings claims it's more reliable than fingerprint scanning because it's actually reading the vein pattern under your skin, so it doesn't care if your hands are wet or dirty. And, since vein scanning uses near infra …Read the full story at The Verge.

I've been using the XIAO 7.5-inch ePaper Panel for quite a long time now, and it's sat on my desk in more or less the same form since I purchased it in the middle of last year. It's a great way for me to get my bearings on the day, with it showing the time of my next work-related call, my tasks for the day, and both the current weather conditions and the next few hours. Since receiving the Spectra 6-color E-Ink display, alongside the EE04 driver board, both from Seeed Studio, I've been able to make it some pretty nice improvements.