Feeble Little Horse leans into digital weirdness on bitknot
From the opening moments of bitknot, it's obvious that Feeble Little Horse has found an entirely new gear. Where on Girl with Fish the blown-out textures were more '90s indie rock and shoegaze, on their latest LP, there's a more modern edge to the distortion and the riffs cut cleaner. Similarly, where the digital glitchiness was mostly relegated to window dressing on their sophomore record, on bitknot it's integral to the arrangements and a core part of their emerging, distinct sound.
We got a preview of this new direction on the one-off single, and one of my favorite songs of 2025, "This Is Real." It blended blast beats, Sonic Youth-esque …
United flight forced to turn around because of a Bluetooth speaker name
United flight 236 from Newark to Palma de Mallorca on Saturday night was forced to turn around just an hour after takeoff due to security concerns around a Bluetooth signal. Multiple Redditors claimed to be on the flight and reported that the crew repeatedly requested passengers to turn off their Bluetooth. According to one poster, the crew issued a one-minute warning, saying that two devices were still active.
One Redditor reported flight attendants making comments like, "This little joke is ruining it for everyone."
An archived recording from Air Traffic Control (embedded below) confirms that the root of the issue was the name of a disc …
This extravagant gaming laptop could ruin other screens for you
My eyes have seen the PC gaming promised land, and it's a beautifully bright world without a shred of blurriness. It's warm, it looks lovely, and it's impeccably sharp. Also, it's expensive as hell.
I've dipped my toe in this world by testing a pre-production version of the upcoming Asus ROG Strix Scar 18, which was recently announced ahead of Computex 2026. It's a gigantic 18-inch gaming laptop that comes with a top-of-the-line 24-core Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX CPU and can be fully kitted out with an RTX 5090 Laptop GPU and 128GB of RAM. Asus sent me a model to test that's maxed out on all specs except storage (it's got "just" 4TB). And of …
007 First Light is already discounted for the PS5 and Steam
IO Interactive’s 007 First Light is here, and it’s just as stunning a James Bond mov — err, video game — as we hoped it would be. Pardon the confusion, the title’s engaging tutorial really feels like you’re watching a great Bond movie at times. Whether you’re a longtime Hitman fan who’s been eagerly waiting for the studio’s latest game or not, there are deals to be had on both the PlayStation 5 and Steam PC versions.
007 First Light
Where to Buy:
Costco members, for instance, can already take advantage of an online-only deal on the disc-based PS5 version, which knocks it down to $62.99 (originally $69.99). It’s not a big discount, but it’s currently the best out there across major retailers. If you have a desktop PC or handheld gaming PC powerful enough to run the game, the Steam version is a little cheaper at Fanatical. The standard digital edition is going for $60.89, while the deluxe digital edition, which includes in-game cosmetics, is down to $69.59 (about $10 off).
First Light is similar in a sense to recent Hitman games. It’s a third-person stealth sandbox game, after all, but it has a little more in common with Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series thanks to its hand-to-hand combat system, quippy protagonist, and wide variety of missions that either have you on foot using fun gadgets or behind the wheel of a muscle car.
Read our full 007 First Light review.
Marathon’s second season is a chance for Bungie to turn things around
Earlier this month, I finally achieved the elusive goal I had set for myself in Bungie's Marathon. I collected six of the game's rarest items, allowing me to attempt and then successfully clear the raid-style Compiler boss. I felt a massive weight lift off my shoulders - nearly 185 hours of playtime and I had managed to complete Marathon's pinnacle activity. A day later, I took my first break from the game.
I had been playing Marathon virtually every day since it launched in March, and I needed to put it down. Treating a Bungie game like it's a grueling second job is nothing new. Certainly not for me or the many fellow Destiny players that …
NASA confirms exploding meteor caused the sonic boom over Boston
On Saturday, at around 2:06 pm ET, a meteor streaked over the northeastern US and exploded north of Cape Cod Bay. The fireball was caught on camera by several people, shook houses, and can even be seen clearly in satellite imagery, lighting up the sky.
Some residents initially thought that the shaking and boom may have been an earthquake, but the United States Geological Survey (USGS) denied that, saying that it was a "widely felt sonic boom from a suspected bolide." In a statement posted on X, NASA described the event as a "bright fireball… accompanied by a loud noise."
The meteor was t …
I went looking for the AI weed vape that gives you Bitcoin for smoking
The crypto weed vape found me on 4/20, the high holiday of cannabis enthusiasts everywhere. It arrived over Slack with the thumbnail of a man exhaling a plume of vapor, the words "every hit delivers Bitcoin" emblazoned across it. It claimed to be advertising a device called Gudtrip, and I thought everything about it sounded fake.
So I went looking for it. What I eventually found, after weeks of searching, dozens of emails, and a reporting effort that spanned continents, was somehow even dumber than I'd imagined.
My first port of call was Gudtrip's website, which only made the vape seem more like a prank. The company's description of the pr …
User-replaceable batteries are coming back in a big way
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more news about gadgets and smartphones, follow Dominic Preston. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.
How it started
In 2023, the European Union agreed on two landmark pieces of legislation mandating how portable tech products with batteries must be designed, aiming to improve longevity, repairability, and recyclability. Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/1670 came into force last year and applies specifically to smartphones and tablets, while Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 takes effect next year …
The Mercedes CLA offers great EV specs for an average price
Despite headwinds from the current administration, automakers continue to release well-equipped EVs with bigger battery packs and increasingly faster charging speeds. For those who want to travel further between plugging in, the future is still bright, just slightly tinted.
But there haven't been many sedans starting around or below $50,000, as crossover SUVs have largely taken up this territory. Now, Mercedes-Benz has released its CLA compact sedan which ticks every box above for the 2026 and 2027 model year, and throws in pleasant interior amenities and fun driving character for good measure.
What's inside
The CLA w …
Backrooms is a certified blockbuster with a $38 million opening day
The Kane Parsons' film Backrooms is expected to earn up to $90 million in its opening weekend after pulling down $38 million on Friday alone. That's not only above expectations, but absolutely obliterates A24's previous opening weekend record of $25.5 million for Alex Garland's Civil War. It's also a better opening day than The Mandalorian and Grogu, which only pulled down $33.7 million on its way to a total $81.6 million for the weekend.
That also means that Backrooms is an incredibly profitable movie, with an estimated $10 million budget. By comparison, the latest Star Wars disappointment cost $165 million and was considered affordable c …