Before the better-known Strava lawsuit against Garmin grabbed headlines last year, Suunto had actually sued Garmin first. In September, Suunto and their parent company Dongguan Liesheng quietly filed suit against Garmin over five patent infringement allegations. Garmin recently responded with a 218-page countersuit that reads less like a legal filing and more like Garmin decided it was done being polite.

Why did Suunto sue Garmin?

The five patents in the initial lawsuit from Suunto had to do with the following features:

• Golf shot tracking using an accelerometer to detect impact

• Respiration rate derived from an optical heart rate sensor

• Slot mode antenna design in wearable devices

• Antenna placement in a wrist-worn device

• Additional wrist-worn antenna design concepts

Three of the five are antenna-related, one covers physiological metrics, and one is about golf shot detection. As patent lawsuits go, Suunto’s original filing was relatively standard in tone; Garmin’s response was not. Suunto and Garmin are not, historically, enemies. The two companies coexisted constructively for the better part of two decades, with Suunto licensing numerous technologies from Garmin during that span. That’s what makes this lawsuit stand out. 

What’s in Garmin’s 218-page countersuit

So how did Garmin respond to all of this? Well, here’s a stand-out quote, spotted by DC Rainmaker: “Like everything else, Suunto predictably looked to copy Garmin’s GPS technology as it fell behind in the marketplace.” That’s pretty blunt language to have on the record.

Garmin’s response goes on to argue that Suunto’s products have historically followed Garmin’s technology roadmap, particularly around GPS features. Garmin filed five counter-patents of its own, and the filing makes clear the company intends to fight.

What’s also worth noting in Garmin’s language is a recognition that the company it’s going after in court isn’t quite the same Suunto it spent two decades working alongside. Garmin seems to understand that it’s fighting Dongguan Liesheng’s lawyers more than it’s fighting Suunto’s people.

What the Suunto/Garmin lawsuit means for you

Patent cases between major tech companies move slowly. Claims get narrowed, filings get amended, and many of these disputes end in cross-licensing agreements rather than verdicts. For athletes and consumers, nothing about your current devices or features changes in the short term.

But stepping back, this case is a useful reminder of just how much intellectual property is layered underneath a modern sports watch. The hardware and software that makes these devices work is deeply patented territory, and when ownership structures change and relationships cool, that IP becomes leverage. As always, if you have any precious data saved to a watch or app, make sure to back it up on your own personal hard drive. 

For the full technical breakdown of the filings, Ray Maker’s reporting over at DC Rainmaker is the definitive read.

“If Lockheed Martin made a Game Boy, would you buy one?” That was the [rhetorical] question The Verge’s Sean Hollister asked when he reviewed ModRetro’s Game Boy-style handheld device back in 2024. He said it “might be the best version of the Game Boy ever made,” though the connection to Palmer Luckey and his defense tech startup Anduril left him conflicted. “I don’t remember my childhood nostalgia coming with a side of possible guilt and fear about putting money into the pocket of a weapons contractor,” he wrote. “Feels weird!”

Those conflicted feelings have lingered ever since. TechCrunch recently cited Hollister’s review while reporting that ModRetro is now seeking funding at a $1 billion valuation. The company is said to have additional retro-inspired hardware in development, including one designed to replicate the Nintendo 64. As for Anduril? It’s reportedly in talks to raise a new funding round that would value the company at around $60 billion.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Workers at Heart Machine, the independent studio behind Hyper Light Drifter and Solar Ash, have formed a union with Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 9003. The wall-to-wall unit covers all 13 frontline employees at the studio, which voluntarily recognized the union in February after a supermajority of eligible workers voted for the measure.

The organizing effort follows a rough stretch at Heart Machine, after the studio laid off employees in November 2024, then announced in October 2025 that it would end development on its early access title Hyper Light Breaker and cut further staff.

“I decided to get involved in organizing my studio because I’ve seen so many peers in the industry stand up to protect the craft we all care so deeply about. Watching that momentum grow made me realize that if we love this work, we have to protect it, especially now,” said Steph Aligbe, a gameplay tools engineer at the studio.

Heart Machine joining the CWA extends the union’s gaming footprint even further. The union counts thousands of employees at Microsoft subsidiaries among its members, as well as staff at EA, Id Software and others. CWA also runs the United Videogame Workers, a direct-join union that launched in 2025, allowing individual game workers in the US and Canada to sign up on their own without elections or employer consent. Large gaming studios like Ubisoft have been undergoing a seemingly endless string of layoffs, and workers are increasingly demanding to have their voices heard.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/hyper-light-drifter-studio-workers-form-union-after-rounds-of-layoffs-165828565.html?src=rss

Valve quickly reconfirmed that it plans to ship the Steam Machine and other recently announced hardware products “this year,” after an official blog post late last week set off some worried speculation about possible delays.

While Steam’s 2025 Year in Review mainly focused on new Steam tools and features released last year, the introductory section focused on the company’s previously announced upcoming hardware plans. However, when that Year in Review post was first published Friday afternoon, it included a surprisingly vague line saying “we hope to ship in 2026, but as we shared recently, memory and storage shortages have created challenges for us.” (Emphasis added.)

As stray chatter about that stray line started to filter through message boards and comment threads, Valve quickly issued a clarification. By late Friday, the blog post had been updated to note that, despite the global supply chain challenges, “we will be shipping all three products this year. More updates will be shared as we finalize our plans.” (Emphasis added.)

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The MacBook Neo might just eclipse the iPhone Air as the most interesting Apple product in years. This machine offers buyers the full macOS experience, in their choice of fun new colors, for $599 ($499 for “students”). Not so long ago, Apple’s cheapest laptop, the MacBook Air—long priced at $999, but increased to $1,099 with the launch of the current M5 model—felt like a good deal. Now, you can get a machine that includes all of Apple’s latest Mac features for as little as half the price.

Of course, the Neo isn’t a MacBook Air. To get the price of a Neo down to $500 or $600, Apple had to make some concessions, like using a mechanical trackpad instead of a modern haptic one; the absence of Touch ID on the base model keyboard; older USB-C tech, including one USB-2.0 port; and no backlight on the keyboard. These are things many users won’t notice or won’t miss much in light of the price. But what’s really allowing for the lower cost of the MacBook Neo is arguably its most interesting feature: While all of Apple’s Macs now run the company’s M-series chipset, the Neo is running the A18 Pro, the chip Apple put in the iPhone 16 Pro, coupled with 8GB of RAM.

Apple MacBook Neo

$599.00
at Amazon

$599.00
at Amazon

Not only is the Neo running an iPhone SoC, this one has one fewer GPU core than the A18 Pro found in the iPhone, as Apple is using the “binned” version of the chip for this laptop. When chips are manufactured, some come out better than others. The better ones are sold as higher-end chips, while others are sold as lower-performing chips, or “binned” chips. In this case, the MacBook Neo is running A18 Pros that weren’t up to the iPhone 16 Pro standard. You can see that from the Neo’s tech specs: While it has the same six-core CPU as the iPhone 16 Pro, the Neo has a five-core GPU, one fewer than the iPhone 16 Pro’s six-core GPU.

It seems safe to assume that a MacBook running a binned iPhone chip, with 8GB of RAM, no less, wouldn’t fare as well running the latest macOS as a chip designed for the operating system. But the truth is more complicated than that.

MacBook Neo keeps up with some M-series MacBooks in benchmarking

While there aren’t any full reviews of the MacBook Neo quite yet, initial benchmarks, as spotted by MacRumors, are quite promising. The Neo’s first Geekbench tests show the laptop’s A18 Pro chip scores a 3461 in single-core performance, 8668 in multi-core performance, and 31286 in Metal (GPU) performance.

Those numbers don’t mean anything unless they’re compared to other devices, of course. Let’s look at the iPhone 16 Pro first: Despite having one more GPU than the Neo, the 16 Pro has slightly lower single-core (3445) and multi-core (8624) scores. That sixth GPU core likely helps it eke out a win in the Metal test, scoring a 32575. Still, performance across the board is relatively similar between the two devices—despite running totally different operating systems.

Where things start to get really impressive, however, is when you start comparing the Neo’s “iPhone” chip to the Mac chips in other MacBooks. The M1 MacBook Air, for example, scores a 2346 in single-core, 8342 in multi-core, and 33148 in Metal. While M1 beats the Neo in Metal tests, the Neo’s A18 Pro chip wildly outperforms M1 in single-core performance, and even wins out in multi-core by a few hundred points. That means simple tasks that don’t require a lot of processing are going to run faster on the Neo than an M1 Air, as will complex tasks—though not by as much.

Even Apple’s M4 MacBook Air doesn’t totally obliterate the Neo. The M4 Air scores a 3696 in single-core, 14730 in multi-core, and 54630 in Metal. Yes, in multi-core and GPU-intensive tasks, the M4 Air smokes the Neo. But for single core tasks, it outperforms the Neo by a smaller margin than the Neo outperforms M1 in multi-core. Simple tasks will likely feel comparable between the M4 Air and the Neo.

The MacBook Neo could be a big win for Apple

Benchmarks don’t necessarily reflect real-world performance, so we won’t really know how the MacBook Neo stacks up against Apple’s M-series MacBooks until reviewers put it through its paces. But these numbers only make me more convinced than ever that the MacBook Neo is going to be a huge success for Apple. Not only is this a great alternative to a Chromebook or a low-end Windows PC, it seems like it’s a good MacBook in its own right. You could buy an older MacBook, say an M1 or M2 machine, or you could buy a brand-new Neo, and enjoy the perks that come with a fresh purchase.

That said, one area the benchmarks don’t measure is multitasking. The Neo has 8GB of RAM, which should be find for single tasks, but once you start running too many things at once, you could choke the system. If you open too many browser tabs, or run too many apps at once, you may start to feel that pain. That’s not an issue if you were between a Neo and an M1 MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM. But if you can find an M1 MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM at a similar price point, that might be the move. You’ll get comparable performance and more flexibility for multitasking—not to mention some future-proofing with the additional RAM, as macOS gets ever more complex.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: AI has made it vastly easier for malicious hackers to identify anonymous social media accounts, a new study has warned. In most test scenarios, large language models (LLMs) — the technology behind platforms such as ChatGPT — successfully matched anonymous online users with their actual identities on other platforms, based on the information they posted. The AI researchers Simon Lermen and Daniel Paleka said LLMs make it cost effective to perform sophisticated privacy attacks, forcing a “fundamental reassessment of what can be considered private online”.

In their experiment, the researchers fed anonymous accounts into an AI, and got it to scrape all the information it could. They gave a hypothetical example of a user talking about struggling at school, and walking their dog Biscuit through a “Dolores park.” In that hypothetical case, the AI then searched elsewhere for those details and matched @anon_user42 to the known identity with a high degree of confidence. While this example was fictional, the paper’s authors highlighted scenarios in which governments use AI to surveil dissidents and activists posting anonymously, or hackers are able to launch “highly personalized” scams.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

To keep Ticketmaster, Live Nation is going to have to make some major changes. As first reported by Politico, Live Nation reached a settlement with the Department of Justice in its antitrust case that accused the live entertainment giant of monopolistic practices. Live Nation will reportedly pay at least $200 million in damages to states that were part of the lawsuit filed in May 2024, but avoid selling off Ticketmaster.

Live Nation will also be required to make a few changes to its business practices. According to NBC News, Ticketmaster, a subsidiary of Live Nation, will be required to create a “standalone ticketing system” that allows third-party competitors like SeatGeek and Eventbrite to sell tickets on.

The settlement aims to loosen some of Live Nation’s control over venues as well. According to NBC News, the company will have to divest up to 13 amphitheaters and be prohibited from retaliating against venues that choose another ticket seller over Ticketmaster.

The settlement comes less than a week after the case went to trial. While the matter may be concluded with the Justice Department, many of the states’ attorneys general who were part of the lawsuit will be continuing their legal action separately.

“The settlement recently announced with the U.S. Department of Justice fails to address the monopoly at the center of this case and would benefit Live Nation at the expense of consumers,” New York State Attorney General Letitia James wrote in a press release. “We will continue our lawsuit to protect consumers and restore fair competition to the live entertainment industry.” 26 other attorneys general signed onto continuing the lawsuit with James.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/live-nation-settlement-avoids-breakup-with-ticketmaster-155031214.html?src=rss

Formula 1’s 2026 season got underway this past weekend in Melbourne, Australia. Formula 1 has undergone a radical transformation during the short off-season, with new technical rules that have created cars that are smaller and lighter than before, with new hybrid systems that are more powerful than anything since the turbo era of the 1980s—but only if the battery is fully charged.

The changes promised to upend the established pecking order of teams, with the introduction of several new engine manufacturers and a move away from the ground-effect method of generating downforce, which was in use from 2022. For at least a year, paddock rumors have suggested that Mercedes might pull off a repeat of 2014, when it started the first hybrid era with a power unit far ahead of anyone else.

That wasn’t entirely clear after six days of preseason testing in Bahrain, nor really after Friday’s two practice sessions in Melbourne, topped by Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari and Oscar Piastri’s McLaren, respectively. The Mercedes team didn’t look particularly worried, and on Saturday we found out why when George Russell finally left off the sandbags and showed some true pace, lapping more than six-tenths faster by the end of free practice than the next-quickest car, the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton.

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According to Reuters, Anthropic has filed a lawsuit to prevent the Pentagon from adding the company it a national security blocklist. This comes days after the Department of Defense sent a letter to Anthropic confirming the company was labeled a supply chain risk; at the time CEO Dario Amodei had all but guaranteed Anthropic would fight back with legal action.

The lawsuit claims the designation is unlawful and violated free speech and due process rights. “These actions are unprecedented and unlawful. The Constitution does not allow ​the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech,” Anthropic said in a statement published by Reuters.

Engadget received the following statement from an Anthropic spokesperson:

 “Seeking judicial review does not change our longstanding commitment to harnessing AI to protect our national security, but this is a necessary step to protect our business, our customers, and our partners. We will continue to pursue every path toward resolution, including dialogue with the government.” 

The lawsuit states that the government’s actions “are unprecedented and unlawful.” It goes on to say that “the Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech. No federal statute authorizes the actions taken here. Anthropic turns to the judiciary as a last resort to vindicate its rights and halt the Executive’s unlawful campaign of retaliation.”

Today’s legal action comes after several weeks of back-and-forth between the AI company and the government. In late February, news broke that the Department of Defense and Defense Secretary Pete Hesgeth were pressuring Anthropic to remove certain safeguards from its AI systems, but Amodei made it clear the company would refuse to allow its model to be used for mass surveillance or development of autonomous weapons.

On the February 27 deadline, Amodei refused to budge, leading Hesgeth to threaten the company with the supply chain risk designation; he also said the US government would cancel its $200 million contract with the company. The same day, President Trump ordered all federal agencies to cease using Anthropic as well.

Despite the fact that, according to the lawsuit, Anthropic had agreed to “collaborate with the Department on an orderly transition to another AI provider willing to meet its demands,” the government followed up with “public castigation.”

Amidst all this, it was reported late last week that Anthropic was once again meeting with the Department of Defense to try and reach a solution — but it seems those talks were unsuccessful.

This story is developing, please refresh for further updates.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/anthropic-sues-us-government-over-supply-chain-risk-designation-152838128.html?src=rss

Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to use physical cash. “The vote means Switzerland will join the likes of Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia, which have already written the right to cold, hard cash in their constitutions,” reports Politico. From the report: Official results revealed that 73.4 percent of voters backed the legal amendment, which the government proposed as a counter to a similar initiative by a group called the Swiss Freedom Movement. The Swiss Freedom Movement triggered the national referendum after its initiative to protect cash collected more than 100,000 signatures, triggering a national referendum. Its initiative secured only 46 percent of the final vote after the government said some of the group’s proposed amendments went too far.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Charging multiple Apple devices often turns into a mess of cables. An iPhone charger here, an Apple Watch puck there, and another cable for AirPods. A single charging station like the Belkin MagSafe 3-in-1 Fast Wireless Charging Pad helps simplify things. It’s currently $39.99 at Woot, down from its original $149.99 price. The same charger is selling for about $100.58 on Amazon, and price trackers show it rarely dipping below $75.99. Shipping is free for Amazon Prime members—everyone else pays a $6 fee. Woot says the deal will stay live for 23 days or until it sells out, whichever happens first.

Belkin MagSafe Charging Pad

$39.99
at Woot

$149.99
Save $110.00

$39.99
at Woot

$149.99
Save $110.00

The appeal here is convenience: Instead of plugging in three separate chargers every night, this pad lets you place all your devices in one spot. It can charge an iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods at the same time, which is helpful if you use Apple gear daily and want a simple bedside setup. The phone section uses MagSafe magnets, so compatible iPhones snap into place without much effort. Charging speeds reach up to 15W for iPhone 12 models and newer, which is Apple’s standard for fast wireless charging. The Apple Watch section also supports fast charging for newer models like the Series 9, so a quick top-up in the morning can add a useful amount of battery. AirPods with a wireless charging case sit on the third section of the pad.

This charger is clearly built with Apple devices in mind, so it doesn’t make much sense if you use Android phones or non-MagSafe accessories. You also need an iPhone 12 or newer to get the magnetic alignment and full 15W charging speeds. Older iPhones will still charge, but without the magnetic guidance. At $39.99, it costs less than many single-device MagSafe chargers.

Amazon’s self-driving subsidiary Zoox announced on Monday that it will begin testing its autonomous vehicles in Dallas and Phoenix. The company will initially deploy retrofitted Toyota Highlander SUVs with human safety drivers to map the new cities before eventually rolling out its purpose-built robotaxis.

Zoox says these two cities will offer a chance to test its sensors and battery performance in unique conditions its cars haven’t yet encountered in existing markets. Phoenix experiences extreme heat, dust and high-speed roads, while Dallas has more sprawling roads and varied weather compared to other cities where Zoox operates. The company is also opening new depots in both cities and a command hub in Scottsdale, Arizona which will handle fleet operations, remote guidance and rider support.

The move brings Zoox’s footprint (between actual launches and test markets) to 10 US cities. It’s other areas of operation are Las Vegas, San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, Miami, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Washington, DC. Amazon acquired the self-driving startup for $1.3 billion in 2020 and has been steadily expanding its reach, with the company saying its fleet has driven over one million autonomous miles and served more than 300,000 riders to date.

Zoox’s expansion comes as competition in the robotaxi market intensifies. Alphabet-owned Waymo has continued its rapid spread across the US, while Tesla’s Robotaxis launched last year, though those are currently limited to parts of Austin, Texas. US regulators are set to hold a self-driving safety forum on Tuesday, with the CEOs of Waymo, Zoox and Aurora all expected to attend.

The regulatory framework has dragged behind the rapid rollout of these vehicles as companies test and iterate the technology on public streets. Just in the last year, autonomous vehicles have struck a child near a school, blocked emergency services responding to a mass shooting and, at least in the case of Teslas, appear to be crashing at higher rates than human drivers.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/amazons-zoox-will-test-its-robotaxis-in-dallas-and-phoenix-143828899.html?src=rss