Friday’s top tech news: let’s give it up for the laptops of CES – The Verge

Creative founder Sim Wong Hoo, the man behind Sound Blaster, has died

2023-01-06T19:40:31-05:00

Sim Wong Hoo, the Singaporean entrepreneur, who founded and ran Creative Technologies. | Image: Creative

Creative Technologies founder, CEO and chairman Sim Wong Hoo has died, his company has confirmed. He "passed away peacefully on 4 January 2023," according to a press release. He was 67 years old.

It might seem hard for younger readers to believe, but there was a time that computer sound wasn't guaranteed. If you wanted to plug in headphones or speakers that could do more than bloops or bleeps, you probably needed a sound card - and none were as successful as Creative Labs' Sound Blaster. It sold over 400 million units as of its 30th anniversary in 2019.

In the pre-Windows 95 / DirectX era, few words in PC gaming were as important as the ph …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The LG Gram Style might be the prettiest laptop of 2023

2023-01-06T19:12:56-05:00

Where’s the touchpad?

For the past few years, I've been a big fan of the LG Gram 17. It's got great battery life, a massive screen, and it feels like it weighs basically nothing. But if there's one hesitation I sometimes have about the line, it's the aesthetic. The Grams of the past have just looked a bit… boring. Which is fine - many laptops are - but also means there's a fashion-conscious audience out there they potentially aren't reaching.

Enter the LG Gram Style. This, as the name implies, might be the first LG laptop I've ever seen that I'd really consider calling "stylish." It's unbelievably thin, it's mind-blowingly light, and it's covered in a lustrous c …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Software engineer allegedly stole $300K from an e-commerce site by copying Office Space

2023-01-06T17:24:29-05:00

A file was discovered on the software engineer’s work computer titled “OfficeSpace Project,” with the accused admitting to naming the scheme after the 1999 comedy. | Illustration by Beatrice Sala

A former Zulily employee has been charged with stealing over $300,000 from the e-commerce site after allegedly being inspired by the 1999 film Office Space. As reported by The New York Times, according to this police report (pdf), Ermenildo Valdez Castro, 28, is accused of manipulating product prices and altering the company's code to divert shipping fees from Zulily to a personal account.

According to court documents, Castro began editing Zulily's software code for checkout payments in February 2022, which allowed him to steal around $260,000 in electrical payments by diverting shipping fees from Zulily customer purchases to a Stripe accou …

Read the full story at The Verge.

MSI made a stylus that is also a pencil

2023-01-06T14:51:56-05:00

I don’t really know, either. | Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge

Okay, so. This is a pencil. You can draw with it on paper, the way you would with a pencil. Then, you can bring it up to your laptop screen and write on that, as you would with a stylus.

This MSI Pen 2, announced earlier this week, actually seems like such a no-brainer product when I think about it. If you have a notebook or Post-its on your desk where you like to write notes but also sometimes like to navigate your laptop's screen with a stylus, you now only need one pen to do both. You could also try sketching out a picture, chart, or graph on paper before diving into doing so on a computer without putting down your writing utensil. You c …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Apple has reportedly canceled the next iPhone SE

2023-01-06T14:09:43-05:00

SE fans may have to go a long time between upgrades. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

We may not be getting a new iPhone SE in 2024, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who bases his predictions on sources in the supply chain. On Friday, Kuo wrote in a blog post that Apple had canceled production and shipment plans for the phone after his prediction last month that a fourth-gen iPhone SE could be canceled or delayed.

Kuo thinks the reason the phone is getting axed could be that Apple's lower-end phones were selling worse than the company hoped (in September, Bloomberg reported that there was more demand for iPhone 14 Pros than regular iPhone 14s) and due to concerns that another price increase for the lineup could make it les …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The Verge Awards at CES 2023

2023-01-06T14:00:32-05:00

It's been three years since we last set foot on the CES show floor - and it feels very good to be back. The in-person portion of the conference was canceled in 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, and the omicron surge led to a much smaller event in 2022 than everyone had hoped for. But for 2023, the show's energy was back, and so was its typical tidal wave of announcements.

This year's show felt tangible in a way that CES often isn't. The event is usually filled with far-out concepts, extravagant tech demos, and promises of gadgets working better together tomorrow - things that aren't going to happen anytime soon or are wholly unaffordabl …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Sennheiser’s latest earphones offer high-end looks for $150

2023-01-06T11:10:05-05:00

Sennheiser’s IE 200. | Image: Sennheiser

I mean, sure, if you're wearing wired in-ear headphones in 2023, you could absolutely buy a pair with the cables going straight down. Or you could get a pair with wires that go up and swoops backward behind your ears like Sennheiser's latest pair of earbuds, the IE 200, and pretend you're a musician onstage at Glastonbury every time you're wearing them.

At $149.99, these in-ear headphones (or, I guess, in-ear monitors) sit at the bottom of Sennheiser's IE range, which goes up to the eye-wateringly expensive $1,499.95 IE 900. But the fundamentals are (ostensibly) the same. They have that premium-looking cable-up form factor and are equipped …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The Peugeot Inception concept is an EV knife aimed straight at the future

2023-01-06T10:26:41-05:00

French automaker Peugeot revealed its Inception concept, a deadly looking electric car that's all sharp angles and brutalist designs. The concept, which was announced at CES this week, will inspire a lineup of future EVs that will start making their way to customers in 2025.

Stellantis, which owns Peugeot, had a heavy docket at this year's CES, including a Chrysler cockpit concept and a battery-electric Ram 1500 truck that borrows a lot from the world of muscle cars. But the Peugeot Inception was arguably the most CES-y of all the announcements, with its rectangular steering wheel, hyper-minimal dashboard, and color-shifting interior. There …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Razer Blade 16 hands-on: a dream gaming laptop

2023-01-05T21:00:17-05:00

Wait until you see the screen.

Razer has given us a first look at the Razer Blade 16 and Razer Blade 18, which will be released in the next few months. And I will say right now: I am impressed.

The Blade 18 is the biggest and most powerful Razer Blade that has ever been released, which is neat in itself. But I'm actually even more excited about the Blade 16, which is debuting some never-before-seen on a Razer Blade.

That's some COLOR." data-portal-copyright="">

First, there's a Mini LED screen. And it looks great. On the screen, some shades looked blindingly bright against black backdrops, where they might've looked washed out on other gaming displays. Black areas, speaking of, looked gorgeously black.

Next to the …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The Qi2 wireless charging standard will mandate magnet strength for less slip ‘n slide

2023-01-05T19:29:16-05:00

I couldn't justify keeping Apple's MagSafe Battery Pack because it didn't stay firmly stuck to my phone without swiveling, and I've seen third-party attachments that are much, much worse. Thankfully, the next version of the Qi wireless charging standard, Qi2, will mandate magnet strength, size, and dimensions in addition to its electrical properties - even though that's the opposite of what I reported yesterday.

(The bigger news about Qi2: it should mean that future Android phones and Apple phones will be able to use the same wireless magnetic charger, effectively MagSafe for Android.)

"Magnet strength testing" is anticipated

Today, I got a …

Read the full story at The Verge.