Wired
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The Labor Day Deals Have Already Started. This Is the On-Sale Tech Gear I’d Shop
From the best Dyson vacuum to the best wireless headphones and earbuds we’ve tested, you can get some great gadgets on sale already ahead of Labor Day.
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Influencers and Resellers Are Turning Empty Boxes Into Big Cash
As the appetite for “authenticity” grows online, content creators are buying up empty boxes for luxury goods—and resellers are cashing in for “crazy prices.”
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Make Cord Clutter a Thing of the Past With This Powerful Wireless HDMI Streamer
I used the Nyrius Phoenix Home True 4K60 to transmit games, TV shows, and movies across my house (yes, even through walls).
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Ruggable Discount Codes and Deals for August 2026
Keep your floors pristine and your budget intact. Save up to 30% off machine-washable rugs, runners, mats, and pillows using Ruggable coupons plus our expert advice.
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The Single English County Saying No to Palantir
The UK government is facing calls to cancel a sprawling health care contract with Palantir. The region of Greater Manchester insists it can do a better job itself.
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Google’s Pixel 11 Is Predictably Slick but All the Same as Last Year’s Phone
Incremental improvements fail to generate much excitement, but Google’s Pixel 11 is still an accomplished Android phone.
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The Galaxy’s Fastest Star Could Reveal the Secrets of a Supermassive Black Hole
S301 passes close to Sagittarius A*—so close that its orbit could reveal how the black hole’s rotation warps the spacetime around it.
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Silicon Valley Doesn't Get Why You Hate AI
Technology leaders don’t seem to understand society’s gripes about AI, but boy, are they posting through it.
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China Is Strapping ‘Digital Bombs’ to Civilian Infrastructure—Is the US Ready?
This week on “Uncanny Valley,” Andy Greenberg discusses sitting in on a war game simulating a cyberattack from the Chinese hacking group Volt Typhoon
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How Teen ‘After-Prom’ Kings in LA Monetized the High School Rager
The West Coast house-party scene has long been iconic. For these young, tech-savvy entrepreneurs, it was also inspiration for MyPlots, a party-promotion empire.
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Salmonella Is Everywhere
From granola to guacamole, a wide variety of foods have been recalled lately over salmonella risks. Experts say common-sense precautions go a long way.
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My Top USB Car Charger Can Revive a Dead Macbook in 30 Minutes
I put top-rated USB car chargers to the test for fast charging, value, heat, and safety. These are the best I found.
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A MAGA County’s Top Election Official Wants to Hire Election Denial Superstar Tina Peters
Tina Peters was convicted of seven counts related to election interference in 2024. Now, she’s fielding an offer from a county that’s become a hotbed of voting-related conspiracy theories.
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How Teen ‘After-Prom’ Kings in LA Monetized the High School Rager
The West Coast house-party scene has long been iconic. For these young, tech-savvy entrepreneurs, it was also inspiration for MyPlots, a party-promotion empire.
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Bumble Tried to Change Dating, but the Dating Market Forced It to Change Instead
The app now allows men to make the first move, suggesting its women-first positioning was limiting growth. It joins other dating apps now throwing everything at the wall in a bid to stay relevant.
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This $110 Pool Robot Is Cheap for a Reason
The Poolease X1 can collect leaves from the pool floor, but dirt, silt, walls, and steps are all beyond its pay grade.
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Elon Musk Is Expected to Point His Money Machine at Texas Politics
Sources tell WIRED that Elon Musk is expected to spend up to $200 million in the midterms. It could be a big boost for GOP Senate candidate Ken Paxton, who’s struggled to raise cash.
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Why Is It Absolute Hell to Buy a Movie Ticket Now?
Overwhelmed theater apps and a scarcity mindset around exclusive big-screen formats for blockbusters like “Dune: Part Three” and “The Odyssey” have led to the “concertification” of movies.
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Coders Say They Already Found Workarounds to Claude’s Invisible Watermarks
Anthropic announced last week it would include invisible watermarks in AI-generated content to comply with new EU rules. Within hours, overrides were being touted online.
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I Can’t Stop Rambling to My Pixel 11 Pro
Google’s new voice typing is pure magic, but subpar gaming performance and a useless rear LED keep these flagships from true greatness.
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I Saw the Future of AI in a Robot That Can Learn on the Spot
During a recent visit to Generalist AI, I watched a robotic arm improvise and use a banana as a tool.
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Google’s Pixel Watch 5 Pumps Up Its Fitness Smarts
With smarter gym tracking, new health alerts, and offline Gemini, the Pixel Watch 5 fine-tunes a winning formula—for a price.
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I Tried a Window-Cleaning Robot and Hated It
I tested the top-of-the-line Ecovacs Winbot W2S Omni window-cleaning robot on my Victorian home, and it was an unmitigated disaster.
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There’s a Very Simple Reason Why You Love the Slate Truck
The car world is filled with designers still obsessed with shoehorning sex into their rides. Slate went a different route, and it’s why people are smitten with the charming electric pickup.
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‘Your Excel Skills Suck’: The Power Users Turning Spreadsheets Into a Spectator Sport
Data and finance professionals are competing in Excel obstacle courses—amassing huge followings and keeping the Microsoft program relevant.
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Flock Has a Powerful New AI Tool for Police. We Got Its Code
Flock’s surveillance cameras have already sparked outrage. WIRED reconstructed its next-generation AI system, already in use by some police, to confirm it goes much further than tracking license plates.
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Hot or Not Built the Internet We’re Still Swiping Through
The early website Hot or Not taught its users to rank people at scale. Twenty-six years later, dating apps are trying to escape the culture the site helped create.
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Reverse-Lookup Service Exposed Millions of Photos of People’s Faces
The people-search tool ClarityCheck says its reverse image search service is “private and secure”—but it left a database containing more than 9 million image files exposed.
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I Tested the Dell XPS 13 and MacBook Neo Side by Side. The Results Surprised Me
The Dell XPS 13 and MacBook Neo are both premium-feeling laptops with only 8 GB of RAM. Which $700 laptop is the better buy?
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We Bought a $500 Counterfeit Rolex So Good, Even Rolex Didn’t Spot It
The replica watch industry is in its “super clone” era. Following tips from murky internet forums, we bought three budget fakes that were good enough to pass as real—but ultimately disposable.
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Squeeze More Juice Out of a Dead Battery!
How the joule thief circuit “steals” energy from seemingly depleted power cells.
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My Favorite Garmin Watch Is Back at Its Lowest Price Ever
The Garmin Fenix 8 AMOLED is $250 off, plus I found deals on Garmin Vivoactive 5 and Forerunner 265.
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Viral Disneyland Content Creator Defends Her ‘Special Friendship’ With Peter Pan
Disney superfan Toni Kulusich has been accused of stalking her favorite character, sparking discourse about boundaries with park actors. She tells WIRED the backlash is unfair.
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Meta Ran Ads for an App That Promised to Nudify Female Politicians
One advertisement featured a pornographic video with a deepfake closely resembling a prominent US politician. Apple removed the app from the App Store after an inquiry from WIRED.
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OpenAI Overhauls Safety Protocols After Its AI Agents Went Rogue
The ChatGPT maker says its upcoming Astra model may have reached “critical” cyber capabilities, prompting it to halt a significant number of training runs while it tightens internal safeguards.
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The Powerful Chinese AI Model Experts Warned About—and Waited for—Is Here
Z.ai’s latest AI model release could help companies secure their systems—or find its way into the hands of hackers.
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The Cop Who Took On Flock
After Noel Pichardo called out his city's embrace of Flock surveillance cameras, he was subjected to five internal affairs investigations in less than two years.
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Can the Upcoming ‘Expanse’ Game Avoid ‘Mass Effect’s’ Biggest Mistake?
The universe may never tell you if your choices mattered. Owlcat’s ‘Osiris Reborn’ might not either.
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Can AI Coexist With Privacy? Proton’s Andy Yen Says It Will Have To
Proton’s CEO is a champion of encryption for everyone. So why is he going all in on un-encryptable AI?
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Fairphone Is Finally Selling Its Repairable Phone in the US
More than a decade after launching in Europe, the Netherlands company is now selling its repairable phones in the US, starting with the Fairphone (Gen 6+).
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What Is El Niño, and What Does It Mean for Weather, Water, and the Global Economy?
This year’s El Niño is shaping up to be the strongest on record. Here’s what to expect.
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This R-Rated Film Studio Wants to Be the HBO of AI
Rogue Studios, a new cinematic adult AI-generator, is betting big on the future of “sophisticated” spicy content.
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Election Officials Are Preparing for Prediction Markets to Sow Chaos in the Midterms
From threats to the safety of poll workers to voters who can’t distinguish between odds and results, prediction markets are already scrambling the political process.
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The Skylight Buddy Promised to Engage My Kid in His Nighttime Routine—and It Delivered
This kid-friendly version of Skylight’s digital calendar actually gets my son to brush his teeth and put on his PJs in a timely fashion.
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A One-Two Punch Has Atlantic Hurricane Season on the Ropes
El Niño coupled with Saharan dust is making this year’s hurricane season a dud. But there’s still potential for dangerous storms.
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There’s a New Link Between Gut Health and Alzheimer’s Disease
Researchers found that a metabolite produced by gut bacteria can weaken the barrier that protects the brain and promote changes associated with the cognitive disease.
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Astronomers Discover the Existence of a Black Hole Star
An object observed by the James Webb Space Telescope lends credence to a strange explanation for the mysterious red spots in the early universe.
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Someone Finally Fixed Installing Apps on a Mac
The installation utility EasyDMG makes it so you never drag and drop an icon again.
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Inside the Experimental Traps Scientists Set for Ghostly Neutrinos
Observatories have been built in mines, deep under the Antarctic ice sheet, and elsewhere in an effort to detect the fleeting particles.
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Turns Out, a New Shape Is Exactly What Samsung Needed for Its Folding Phone
Nearly a decade later, Samsung’s Galaxy Fold finally comes into its own.
