An AI-powered smart home voice assistant that amiably chats with you, follows your orders with ease, and does your bidding in the background? It's a tantalizing idea that seems so close, yet remains stubbornly far away. The big prediction last year was that a new Apple smart hub powered by an AI-augmented Siri would arrive by spring 2025--right around now--complete with a touchscreen and smart home controls. It was a device that would vault Apple back into the smart home game. And then there was Google, which had begun testing Gemini on its Nest smart speakers late last year, allowing a small subset of its users to chat with the powerful AI model when asking more complex questions.

Are you ready to completely overhaul your floor cleaning routines? The eufy E28 and E25 have just landed, and we bet you're going to want one of these robotic cleaners delivered to your home sooner rather than later. Under pre-sale now, be sure to order and save your spot in line with these powerful units. The E25 and E28 are two brand-new models unveiled by the company. Both feature eufy's award-winning HydroJet mopping technology and deliver a jaw-dropping 20,000Pa suction power for a deep clean.

Find incredible savings on Windows software at StackSocial this week. Right now, you can get Windows 11 Pro for 9.97, down from the original cost of 199 by using the promo code WINDOWS. This upgrade will enhance your daily tasks with its easy-to-navigate interface, improved voice typing, and advanced security features. StackSocial is also giving shoppers a chance to save more than 90% on Windows 11 Home, which also offers these benefits. Shoppers can also save on a one-time lifetime access license to Microsoft Project 2021 Professional and Microsoft Visio 2021 Professional for a savings of more than 235, making your project management and data visualization tasks more efficient and effective.

Chips themselves, the key computing hardware inside AI datacenters, are exempt from Trump's tariffs--but only if they are imported to the U.S. as standalone products. However, most chips are not imported into the U.S. as raw materials; instead, they arrive already-packaged inside products like servers, which are subject to tariffs. Worried AI investors received good news on Monday in a note circulated by analyst Stacy Rasgon, who pointed out that most Nvidia servers are likely to escape the bite of Trump's tariffs. That's because most appear to be assembled in Mexico, and therefore benefit from a tariff exemption under a free trade agreement. That's a "silver lining" to the news, says Rasgon, a semiconductor industry analyst at Bernstein Research.

If you thought robot dogs were the coolest animatronic animals out there, prepare to think again. Kawasaki Heavy Industries, a company better known for its high-end motorcycles, has unveiled a hydrogen-powered, ride-on robo-horse. The bizarre device was unveiled at the Osaka Kansai Expo on April 4 as part of Kawasaki's'Impulse to Move' project. Dubbed the CORLEO, this two-seater quadruped is capable of galloping over almost any terrain. The company calls it a'revolutionary off-road personal mobility vehicle' which swaps out the familiar wheels for four robotic legs. To steer, all you need to do is move your body and the machine's AI vision will pick out the best route to take.

Popularity in the tech world is hard to measure. I've talked at length about this in my discussions of programming language popularity. It really comes down to what you use to measure popularity -- and how available those metrics are to those doing the analysis. It's difficult to generically define popularity, especially when you're including tools that do wildly different things. For example, is a general-purpose text-to-image generator like Midjourney inherently more popular than a tool that removes backgrounds from images like Remove.bg?

In a darkened room, a fractured symphony of rattles, hums and warbles bounces off the walls – like an orchestra tuning up in some parallel universe. If you look closely there is a small fragment of a performer. In the centre of the room, visitors hover around a raised plinth, craning to glimpse the brains behind the operation. Under a magnifying lens sit two white blobs, like a tiny pair of jellyfish. Together, they form the lab-grown "mini-brain" of the late US musician Alvin Lucier – composing a posthumous score in real time.

A new report from Reuters has shed light on how Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is employing tech in its processes, including the alleged use of artificial intelligence to monitor communications. The initiative is said to be keeping an eye out for chatter that's considered hostile toward Musk or President Donald Trump. Some managers at the Environmental Protection Agency have reportedly been told that DOGE is deploying AI to monitor communication apps and software such as the widely used Microsoft Teams for anti-Musk or anti-Trump sentiment. It's said that DOGE is watching out for individuals whose work didn't square with the administration's agenda. One manager reportedly told EPA staffers to "Be careful what you say, what you type and what you do."

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Imagine yourself strapped to a chair with your head held in place by some device. The only thing you're free to move is your eyes. You hear something to your left; you'd want to turn your head left to look, or at least take a sidelong glance. Your brain sends the necessary impulses to your muscles--only you can't move.

Motorola started the year off strong. The 2025 Moto G and Moto G Power proved to be solid midrange smartphones thanks to their lengthy battery life, high-definition screens, and decent camera systems. Now the company has announced a third model: the 2025 Moto G Stylus. As the name reveals, this model has a built-in stylus to help users jot down notes, navigate the UI, and enable better interactions with such key features as Sketch to Image, which utilizes artificial intelligence to bring crude drawings to life within the Moto Note app. There's also Google's Circle to Search, which lets owners look up on-screen items on the search engine just by circling them.