Tech

Lego announced its new Smart Play system at CES on Monday, adding interactive, responsive Legos to the famously analog franchise. The Smart Play system includes a 2×4 brick, Smart Tag tiles, and Smart Minifigures. The Smart Bricks and Minifigures can sense nearby Smart Tags, which are 2×2 studless tiles with …

Three offshore wind developers are suing the Trump administration after the Department of the Interior halted five projects worth a total of $25 billion on December 22. If completed, the projects would generate a total of 6 gigawatts of electricity. Two lawsuits were filed Thursday and Friday last week by …

Amazon’s AI-powered overhaul of its digital assistant, now known as Alexa+, is coming to the web. On Monday, at the start of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the company announced the official launch of a new website, Alexa.com, which is now rolling out to all Alexa+ Early Access …

A significant portion of the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is about TVs, and this year, LG is showing off its manufacturing chops with a new Wallpaper OLED TV that is just 9mm thick. The South Korean company first launched the Wallpaper line in 2017, and is now bringing it …

Africa’s largest fintech company, Flutterwave, has acquired Nigerian open banking startup Mono in an all-stock deal valued between $25 million and $40 million, according to people familiar with the transaction. The acquisition brings together two of Africa’s leading fintech infrastructure companies. Flutterwave operates one of the continent’s widest payments networks, …

Hardware maker Plaud launched a new AI notetaker called Plaude NotePin S, along with a desktop app that helps you take notes for digital meetings, ahead of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The company first launched its pin-styled notetaker in 2024, which my former colleague Brian …

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp have raised new funding for their social media startup West Co. The startup launched an invite-only version of its first app, Tangle, in November. Now the Financial Times has pieced together more details from comments made by Stone and Sharp, as …

DoorDash seems to have confirmed a viral story about a driver using an AI-generated photo to lie about making a delivery. As reported by Nexstar, Austin resident Byrne Hobart said he experienced this very thing, writing in a post on X: “Amazing. DoorDash driver accepted the drive, immediately marked it …

Over the past few days, France and Malaysia have joined India in condemning Grok for creating sexualized deepfakes of women and minors. The chatbot, built by Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI and featured on his social media platform X, posted an apology to its account earlier this week, writing, “I …

Voice AI startup Subtle, which creates voice isolation models to have computers understand you better in loud environments, today launched a new pair of wireless earbuds that help users sound clear in calls and get clear transcription for notes. The company unveiled these earbuds ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show …