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Google is releasing their budget a-series version of the Pixel 10 on March 5, a whole month earlier than the 9a was released in 2025. There is not much dividing the 10a from the 9a, but there are a few software updates that can make it worth it for some people. Throw in a $100 Amazon gift card, and it’s hard to say no. Google has the pre-orders for the Google 10a out already, going for $499, plus the gift card. Alternatively, you can get their Pixel Buds 2a instead of the $100 gift card for the same $499 price.

Google Pixel 10a – Obsidian – 128 GB with Pixel Buds 2a Bundle

$499.00
at Amazon

$628.00
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$499.00
at Amazon

$628.00
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Google Pixel 10a 128GB 6.3″ Unlocked Smartphone + $100 Gift Card

$499.00
at Amazon

$599.00
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$499.00
at Amazon

$599.00
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Lifehacker’s Associate Tech Editor Michelle Ehrhardt actually got her hands on the Pixel 10a during a recent Google demo event. As she pointed out, the specs on the Pixel 10a are not like the Pixel 10. It’s more similar to the 9 instead. It has a Tensor G4 processor, 8GB of RAM, and up to 256GB of storage, as well as the same camera system, with a 48MP main lens, a 13MP ultrawide lens, and a 13MP selfie camera. The battery life is the same 30+ hours, too, and the MagSafe-like Pixelsnap feature is gone. The main upgrade here is a brighter 3,000 nits screen, a thinner bezel, and an improved Corning Gorilla Glass 7i cover glass. But the value might be in the software and AI.

There are two AI camera features that debuted with the Pixel 10. One is Auto Best Take, which takes 150 frames in one click, chooses the best picture, and automatically deletes the rest (or stitches together elements from multiple shots to make a new “best” image). And Camera Coach, which guides you with AI on how to take the best picture. Google also brought Satellite SOS for the first time to an a-series phone. It lets you connect to a Satellite and ping emergency services for help if you have no cell signal.

If you’re thinking of upgrading from a Pixel 9a or later, there’s not much here to make it worth it. However, if you have anything older than a Pixel 9 or are switching to Pixel for the first time, this is a great opportunity and phone to do so.

When Apple released the first beta for iOS 26.4 this week, testers immediately got to work looking for each and every new feature and change. To their credit, there’s more new here than in iOS 26.3, including an AI playlist generator for Apple Music and support for end-to-end encryption with RCS (finally). But one update slipped under the radar, since it’s not actually available to test in this first beta: CarPlay support for AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.

AI assistants are coming to CarPlay in iOS 26.4

As spotted by MacRumors, CarPlay’s Developer Guide spills the beans on this upcoming integration. On page 13, the entitlement “CarPlay voice-based conversational app” is listed with a minimum iOS version of iOS 26.4. While it doesn’t specifically mention integrations with ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, the documentation does suggest that voice-based conversational apps are a supported app type in iOS 26.4. As such, MacRumors is reporting that companies that make chatbots (i.e. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google) will need to update their apps to work with CarPlay.

According to MacRumors, drivers will be able to ask apps like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini questions while on the road, but they won’t be able to control functions of the car or the driver’s iPhone. You also won’t be able to use a “wake word” to activate the assistant (e.g. “Hey ChatGPT,” or “OK, Gemini”), so you’ll need to tap on the app itself to talk to the assistant.

Apple is issuing guidance to developers on how to implement these assistants in CarPlay starting with this latest update. On page seven, Apple notes that voice-based conversational apps must only work when voice features are actively being used, and avoid showing text or imagery when responding to queries. It’s the first time Apple is allowing developers of “voice-based conversational” apps to develop for CarPlay. While the company has allowed other developers to make apps for its in-car experience, it has obviously put limitations on what types of apps can get through. It makes sense for Google to develop a Google Maps CarPlay app, but TikTok has no business offering drivers a CarPlay-version of its algorithm.

Install the iOS 26.4 at your own risk

This addition is coming to iOS 26.4, but likely in a future beta. Don’t install the beta at this time expecting to try this feature out—though, you should think twice before installing the beta at all. Betas like iOS 26.4 are temperamental, as Apple is currently testing the software for bugs and stability issues. By installing it early, you risk dealing with those issues, which could impact how you use your iPhone, or even result in data loss.

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A new software update for recent Garmin watches adds “glances” for types of data that weren’t previously viewable from the watch face. These include battery usage stats, lifestyle logging, sleep alignment, and even a few extras like sports scores. The update also includes features other than glances, including, notably, fitness coaching. The features I’m writing about are now available in the Forerunner 570, Forerunner 970, and Vivoactive 6, as well as the Fenix 8 series, Venu 4, and X1. (The watch in my photos here is a Forerunner 570.) 

New glances for Garmin watches

Credit: Beth Skwarecki

Glances are those little strips of data that you can see when you scroll up (or down) from the main watch face—things like the weather and your training status, for example. Garmin’s newest stable update for the Forerunner 570 and 970 is numbered 16.28, and has been rolling out slowly over the past week. (I just got it on my 570.) Here are my favorite new glances: 

• Battery usage: The new battery widget has the charge level, of course, but tapping it shows you a graph of your battery life, including its long-term history, and a list of which apps or functions have been using the most battery. 

• Lifestyle logging: If you’ve been using the new Lifestyle Logging feature in the Garmin Connect app, you can now do it from your wrist. This is where you select a few health-related habits to track every day. The glance will tell you how many items you’ve logged today, and you can quickly answer these yes or no questions without opening your phone. 

• Sleep alignment: The sleep glance has been around a while, but it now includes more data, including your optimal sleep window and whether you’re aligned with it. 

• Sports scores: You can select a handful of your favorite teams to receive up to date scores on your wrist. This was surprisingly easy to set up without even unlocking my phone: You just choose a league (MLB, NFL, NCAA men’s or women’s, to name a few) and then scroll until you find the city name for your favorite team. Alphabetizing by city rather than team name is smart, especially if you’re going through the menus picking all your hometown teams. This widget seems to show the next upcoming game if your chosen team hasn’t played a recent game.

• Weight tracking: From this glance you can see your current body weight, and tap through to see trends and history.

Other new features Garmin added in its latest update

Credit: Beth Skwarecki

Besides the glances, Garmin added a bunch of other features to its watches. According to the release notes, Garmin says that pace readings (presumably during runs) have been improved to be more responsive. I look forward to trying that out. There are also color filters—instead of just turning on a red shift for nighttime, you can choose other colors as well. 

Training plans also get more capabilities. In addition to the usual running and cycling plans, there’s now a fitness coach, similar to what launched on the Venu 4. This lets you set up a plan that gives you a mix of cardio and strength workouts, though I found that the coach’s endurance workouts don’t actually specify the activity. Typically, when selecting my “basic endurance” workout that’s planned for today, the watch prompts me to select from my usual list of endurance activities: run, trail run, treadmill run, indoor bike, and so on. The coach, however, will simply tell you to do “endurance” or “cardio” for 20 minutes. You could choose to run, but you could also hike or use the elliptical, for instance.

For the strength workouts, I told the coach that I have access to a full gym, so my next strength workout will include deadlifts and squats. It looks like a pretty solid plan for somebody who wants well-rounded fitness without committing to running a race. 

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: For a while now, Mac owners have been able to use tools like CrossOver and Game Porting Toolkit to get many Windows games running on their operating system of choice. Now, GameSir plans to add its own potential solution to the mix, announcing that a version of its existing Windows emulation tool for Android will be coming to macOS. Hong Kong-based GameSir has primarily made a name for itself as a manufacturer of gaming peripherals — the company’s social media profile includes a self-description as “the Anti-Stick Drift Experts.” Early last year, though, GameSir rolled out the Android GameHub app, which includes a GameFusion emulator that the company claims “provides complete support for Windows games to run on Android through high-precision compatibility design.”

In practice, GameHub and GameFusion for Android haven’t quite lived up to that promise. Testers on Reddit and sites like EmuReady report hit-or-miss compatibility for popular Steam titles on various Android-based handhelds. At least one Reddit user suggests that “any Unity, Godot, or Game Maker game tends to just work” through the app, while another reports “terrible compatibility” across a wide range of games. With Sunday’s announcement, GameSir promises a similar opportunity to “unlock your entire Steam library” and “run Win games/Steam natively” on Mac will be “coming soon.” GameSir is also promising “proprietary AI frame interpolation” for the Mac, following the recent rollout of a “native rendering mode” that improved frame rates on the Android version. There are some “reasons to worry” though, based on the company’s uneven track record. The Android version faced controversy for including invasive tracking components, which were later removed after criticism. There were also questions about the use of open-source code, as GameSir acknowledged referencing and using UI components from Winlator, even while maintaining that its core compatibility layer was developed in-house.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sea otters hold hands while they sleep floating on their backs, an incredibly precious behavior known as rafting, so they don’t get separated while they’re napping. The behavior is particularly useful to young sea otters, who haven’t quite developed their sea legs yet and need to stay close to mom. That’s smart. You know, sometimes my girlfriend and I hold hands when we sleep, but I still wake up alone. When do you think she’s coming back? “She left months ago.” So it’s gotta be soon, right?

Google I/O 2026 is nearly upon us. This is Google’s annual opportunity to showcase the software features (and perhaps some of the hardware) the company has been cooking up behind the scenes. Like other big tech keynotes, anyone can tune in live and catch Google’s latest announcements as they happen. Here’s when Google I/O 2026 will kick off, and what we know about the conference at this time.

When and what time is Google I/O 2026?

Google tends to kick off its I/O event in May of each year, and 2026 is no different. This year, Google I/O will run May 19 through May 20. If you’re used to watching one single livestream, that two-day schedule might come as a surprise. But I/O isn’t just an announcement: It’s a developer conference, spanning keynotes, demos, and product sessions.

But if you’re only interested in the company’s main keynote, you’ll want to get May 19 on your calendar. Google hasn’t announced the exact time for its presentation, but it usually starts at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET), based on previous years.

How to watch Google I/O 2026

While Google invites a select group of journalists to watch its presentations live, and encourages developers to register to attend its various events, you can tune into the livestream wherever you are in the world. Google hasn’t confirmed where its livestreams will be hosted this year, but looking to the past, you’ll likely be able to stream the keynote from the official I/O website, as well as Google’s official YouTube channel.

What will be announced at Google I/O 2026?

The short answer? We don’t really know! Google is keeping I/O news close to the vest, and rumors haven’t been particularly prolific this year—at least, not yet. Seeing as it’s only February, it’s entirely possible we’ll hear more about Google I/O 2026 as we get closer to May.

That said, there are some things you can expect to see regardless of leaks and rumors. Android 17 will almost assuredly take center stage at Google I/O this year. Google just released first beta for the OS on Wednesday, though it doesn’t change all that much about Android 16 at this time. That said, I suspect beta testers will discover a number of new features and changes between now and May, as Google continues to add new things to its test software ahead I/O.

Like the past couple of I/O’s, this year should also be all about AI. Google seems to come out with new AI announcements multiple times a week, including adding its Lyria 3 AI music model to Gemini, or adding an agentic bot to Chrome to browse the internet for you. I expect Google I/O 2026 to be full of AI features—perhaps more than some of us would like to hear about.

I/O 2026 could also show off some hardware, but that’s no guarantee. Google did just announce the Pixel 10a, the company’s latest “budget” phone, and it could reveal other devices in May, but I/O really is more about the software than the hardware. (It is a developer conference, after all.)

TP-Link is facing legal action from the state of Texas for allegedly misleading consumers with “Made in Vietnam” claims despite China-dominated manufacturing and supply chains, and for marketing its devices as secure despite reported firmware vulnerabilities exploited by Chinese state-sponsored actors. The Register: The Lone Star State’s Attorney General, Ken Paxton, is filing the lawsuit against California-based TP-Link Systems Inc., which was originally founded in China, accusing it of deceptively marketing its networking devices and alleging that its security practices and China-based affiliations allowed Chinese state-sponsored actors to access devices in the homes of American consumers.

It is understood that this is just the first of several lawsuits that the Office of the Attorney General intends to file this week against “China-aligned companies,” as part of a coordinated effort to hold China accountable under Texas law. The lawsuit claims that TP-Link is the dominant player in the US networking and smart home market, controlling 65 percent of the American market for network devices.

It also alleges that TP-Link represents to American consumers that the devices it markets and sells within the US are manufactured in Vietnam, and that consistent with this, the devices it sells in the American market carry a “Made in Vietnam” sticker.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to a New York Times report, Meta plans to add facial recognition technology to its Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses. The feature, called “Name Tag” within Meta, would allow users to identify people and get information about them through Meta’s AI. The feature could be rolling out as early as this year.

Adding the feature is not a done deal, however. According to an internal document cited by The Times, the company is weighing the “safety and privacy risks” of introducing facial recognition as well as discussing how to navigate the response to a no-doubt controversial feature.

A document quoted by The Times suggests Meta is deliberately timing a potential rollout to minimize scrutiny. “We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns,” the document from Meta’s Reality Labs reads.

Meta’s long history with facial recognition

This would not be the first time Meta dabbled in facial recognition. Meta debated adding facial recognition to the first generation of its Ray-Ban smart glasses in 2021, but decided against it due to privacy concerns. And Facebook, Meta’s social media platform, identified and tagged people as early as 2010, but the company pulled the feature in 2021, citing “many concerns about the place of facial recognition technology in society.”

Concerns also include the risk of doxxing. The ACLU characterized facial recognition used by law enforcement as a “systematic invasion of privacy,” though personal use of the technology raises different issues. Facial recognition glasses could enable instant doxxing, linking anyone’s face to publicly available information, including social media profiles, addresses, and phone numbers.

Meta says it isn’t planning to release a universal facial recognition tool. The company is considering glasses that identify only people a user knows based on their connection on a Meta platform, or only identify people who have a public account on a Meta site like Instagram. “While we frequently hear about the interest in this type of feature—and some products already exist in the market—we’re still thinking through options and will take a thoughtful approach if and before we roll anything out,” Meta said in a statement.

The upside of smart glasses with facial recognition technology

Privacy concerns aside, the technology has genuinely beneficial applications, particularly to people with vision problems. According to The Times’ report, Meta originally planned to introduce Name Tag to attendees of a conference for the blind before releasing it to the public, highlighting a group that could potentially benefit from facial recognition technology, though that plan was scrapped for unknown reasons.

Mike Buckley, CEO of Be My Eyes, an accessibility technology company that works closely with Meta, said he has been in discussions with Meta about facial recognition glasses for more than a year. “It is so important and powerful for this group of humans,” Buckley told The Times.

Following our report last week that Verizon is forcing people to wait 35 days for phone unlocks after paying off device installment plans, Verizon is apparently trying to eliminate the inconvenient delay. But Verizon hasn’t confirmed the plan to Ars, and a statement to another news outlet did not provide any timeline for implementing the change.

As a refresher, the latest version of Verizon’s device unlocking policy for postpaid customers imposes a 35-day waiting period when a customer pays off the remaining balance of a device installment plan online, in the Verizon app, or with a Verizon gift card. There’s also a 35-day waiting period after paying off an installment plan over the phone or at a Verizon Authorized Retailer.

Saying restrictions are needed to counter fraud, Verizon will only unlock a phone immediately when someone pays off their device-plan balance at a Verizon corporate store or when someone pays off an installment plan on schedule via automatic payments. If you’re partway into one of Verizon’s 36-month device installment plans and pay off the remaining balance early, but without making a trip to a Verizon corporate store, you’d have to wait 35 days for an unlock that would allow you to switch the phone to a different carrier’s network.

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Google has announced that using its newly incorporated Lyria 3 model, Gemini users will be able to generate 30-second music tracks based on a prompt, or remix an existing track to their liking. The new model builds on Gemini’s pre-existing ability to generate text, images and video, and will also be available in YouTube’s “Dream Track” feature, where it can be used to generate detailed backing tracks for Shorts.

Like some other music generation tools, prompting Gemini doesn’t require a lot of detail to produce serviceable results. Google’s example prompt is “a comical R&B slow jam about a sock finding their match,” but after playing with Lyria 3, you can definitely get more granular about individual elements of a track — changing the tempo or the style of drumming, for example — if you want to. Outside of text, Gemini can also generate music based on a photo or video, and tracks can be paired with album art created by Google’s Nano Banana image model.

Google says that Lyria 3 improves on its previous audio generation models in its ability to create more “realistic and musically complex” tracks, give prompters more control over individual components of a song and automatically generate lyrics. Gemini’s outputs are limited to 30-second clips for now, but given how Google’s promotional video shows off the feature, it’s not hard to imagine those clips getting longer or the model getting incorporated into other apps, like Google Messages.

Like Gemini’s other AI-generated outputs, songs made with Lyria 3 are also watermarked with Google’s SynthID, so a Gemini clip can’t as easily be passed off as a human one. Google started rolling out its SynthID Detector for identifying AI-generated content at Google I/O 2025. The sample tracks Google included alongside its announcement are convincing, but you might not need the company’s tool to notice their machine-made qualities. The instrumental parts of Gemini’s clips often sound great, but the composition of the lyrics Lyria 3 produces sounds alternately corny and strange.

If you’re curious to try Lyria 3 for yourself, Google says you can prompt tracks in Gemini starting today, provided you’re 18 years or older and speak English, Spanish, German, French, Hindi, Japanese, Korean or Portuguese.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/gemini-can-now-generate-a-30-second-approximation-of-what-real-music-sounds-like-204445903.html?src=rss

A study of more than 12,000 European firms found that AI adoption causally increases labour productivity by 4% on average across the EU, and that it does so without reducing employment in the short run.

Researchers from the Bank for International Settlements and the European Investment Bank used an instrumental variable strategy that matched EU firms to comparable US firms by sector, size, investment intensity and other characteristics, then used the AI adoption rates of those US counterparts as a proxy for exogenous AI exposure among European firms.

The productivity gains, however, skewed heavily toward medium and large companies. Among large firms, 45% had deployed AI, compared to just 24% of small firms. The study also found that complementary investments mattered enormously: an extra percentage point of spending on workforce training amplified AI’s productivity effect by 5.9%, and an extra point on software and data infrastructure added 2.4%.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

2026 is looking like a pretty good year for affordable electric vehicles. There’s a new Nissan Leaf that starts at a hair under $30,000 (as long as you ignore the destination charge). We’ll soon drive the reborn Chevrolet Bolt—with a new lithium iron phosphate battery, it also has a price tag starting with a two (again, ignoring the destination charge). And the closer you get to $40,000, the more your options expand: the Hyundai Ioniq 5, Chevy Equinox EV, Toyota bZ, Tesla Model 3, Ford Mustang Mach-E, and Subaru Solterra all fall within that price bracket, and some of those are pretty good cars.

But what if you only want to spend a fraction of that? Well, you won’t be buying anything new, but then neither do three-quarters of American car buyers, and there’s nothing wrong with that. A few weeks ago, we looked at what passes for the used EV bargain basement—ones that cost $5,000 or less. As long as you’re OK with limited range and slow charging, going electric on a shoestring is possible. But if you’re prepared to spend twice that, it turns out you’ve got plenty of options.

As before, we stress that you should have a reliable place to charge an EV if you’re going to buy one, which means at home at night or at work during the day. At this price range, you’re unlikely to find something that DC fast charges quickly, and relying on public AC charging sounds stressful. You’ll probably find a car with some battery degradation, but for the vast majority of models that use active battery cooling, this should be minimal; about 2 percent a year appears to be the average.

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Cleveland.com, the digital arm of Ohio’s Plain Dealer newspaper, has removed writing from the workloads of certain reporters and handed that job to what editor Chris Quinn calls an “AI rewrite specialist” who turns reporter-gathered material into article drafts.

The reporters on these beats — covering Lorain, Lake, Geauga, and most recently Medina County — are assigned entirely to reporting, spending their time on in-person interviews and meeting sources for coffee. Editors review the AI-produced drafts and reporters get the final say before publication.

Quinn says the arrangement has effectively freed up an extra workday per week for each reporter. The newsroom adopted this model last year to expand local coverage into counties it could no longer staff with full teams, and Quinn described the setup in a February 14 letter after a college journalism student withdrew from a reporting role over the newsroom’s use of AI. Quinn blamed journalism schools for the student’s reaction, saying professors have repeatedly told students that AI is bad.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.