News, analysis, and insights on tech companies, devices, software, and emerging technologies.
The winter guides on this site, grouped by the problem that brings people here: an electric car that loses range or charges slowly in the cold, snow and ice on the road, a frozen door or charge port, a power outage, a heating bill that doubled, and a Starlink dish under snow. Each entry says which question the guide settles, so you can go straight to the page you need.
Starlink has renamed its dishes at least twice, shipped a V5, and sells a Mini X that is the same Mini with a second router in the box. Here is which Starlink you own, which four you can actually get in the US today, what each one draws and costs, and which one fits a home, a camper, or a boat.
A watt-hour sizing guide that works from appliance spec sheets instead of a vendor's shopping page. One formula, real numbers for a fridge, CPAP, Starlink, laptop, and sump pump, and an honest answer on what it takes for a whole house. Most people need a far smaller battery than the marketing suggests, and one popular purchase makes no sense at all.
A Starlink Roam plan covers a boat on lakes, rivers and coastal waters from $55 a month, as of October 13, 2026. Past 12 nautical miles it takes Roam Unlimited at $175 plus Ocean Mode at $6 per GB. Here is what each plan allows, what a houseboat can use, and which dish to buy.
Starlink's home plans cost $55, $85 or $130 a month and its travel plans $55, $80 or $175, as of October 13, 2026. Here is which one fits you, what each data limit means, what a year costs, and what changed in 2026.
This guide's pick for most RV trips is a Starlink Mini on a Roam plan, and a home plan will not travel. Here is which dish fits which trip, what each plan costs, how many amp-hours the dish takes from a 12-volt battery, and where to mount it.
Starlink mesh nodes pair with the Gen 2 Router, Router 3, Router Mini and the Starlink Mini, not with the Gen 1 Router and not with any other brand's mesh system, and Starlink recommends no more than three of them. Here is which router does what, when to run a cable to the node, how bypass mode hands the network to your own router, which kits need the Ethernet Adapter, and why port forwarding takes a third-party router and, on IPv4, a public IP that only some plans can get.
Apple confirmed on October 2, 2026 that some iPhone 18 Pro Max phones on AT&T lose cellular service, and that a phone already stuck on SOS has to be replaced. iOS 27.0.1 and a carrier settings update are meant to help prevent the problem on phones that still work. Here is what to do in each case, and what Apple has not said.
Apple said on October 2, 2026 that it will add controls to Full Disk Access, the Mac permission that lets an app read files, mail, messages and browsing history. It gave no date and named no app. The post follows a public dispute over Meta's Muse agent, and you can check which apps hold the permission on your Mac.
When the power flickers, a Starlink router can factory reset itself, and the dish can need half an hour or more to come back. Here is the fix order after an outage, how many hours each Starlink kit runs on a battery, and how to keep it online through the next one.
The winter guides on this site, grouped by the problem that brings people here: an electric car that loses range or charges slowly in the cold, snow and ice on the road, a frozen door or charge port, a power outage, a heating bill that doubled, and a Starlink dish under snow. Each entry says which question the guide settles, so you can go straight to the page you need.
The Starlink app raises named alerts that point at why it dropped, from Obstructed to Thermal Shutdown. Here is what the dropout alerts and router lights mean, why a drop around 3 AM can be a scheduled update reboot, and the fix order for drops that keep coming back.
On September 14 the Air Force Secretary said the United States has "on-orbit space control weapons," the first time Washington has admitted to weapons stationed in orbit. He would not say what they are. Here is what the phrase means, why a president said something close to it in 1964, what the treaty actually bans, and what it means for the 11,000 Starlink satellites sharing that sky.
Starlink's current dishes heat themselves to melt snow, rated from up to 1 inch an hour on the Mini to up to 3.5 on the Performance kit. Here is what the Snow Melt setting actually does, what it costs in watts on a battery, why the Mini really does have it, and the fix ladder for a dish that is buried anyway.
Apple announced the iPhone Duo on September 9: a foldable with a 5.4-inch outer screen and a 7.6-inch inner one, the A20 Pro chip and a $1,999 starting price. Pre-orders open October 16 and phones arrive October 23, five weeks after the iPhone 18 Pro.
The iPhone 18 Pro can sign every pixel its main camera captures and keep an unalterable reference copy beside the photo. It is a real advance in proving a photo was not edited, and it still proves less than the word "authenticity" suggests. It is opt-in, cannot be captured in the EU at launch, and sits outside the open standard Google, Samsung and Leica chose.
Apple announced the iPhone 18 Pro at $1,199 and the iPhone 18 Pro Max at $1,299 on September 9, a $100 increase on both models. Then its store came back with the year-old iPhone 17, 17e and Air each $100 higher too. Pre-orders open Saturday, phones arrive September 18.
A gasoline inverter generator delivers electricity at roughly 72 cents to $1.13 per kilowatt-hour in fuel alone at October 2026 pump prices, from its own spec sheet. A battery power station delivers grid electricity at about 22 cents, plus a hardware cost that ranges from 20 cents to eight dollars per kilowatt-hour depending on how often you actually use it. Here is that math, a daily load table for a three-day outage, the noise and carbon monoxide numbers from the makers and the CPSC, what each one needs in maintenance, when the generator still wins, how many miles a power station can put into an EV, and which Teslas can now power a house.
Dyson just launched the CameraJet, a $499 toothbrush with a built-in camera and an AI jet that flosses while you brush. Here is what it does, what it costs, and what the fine print says.
A compatibility guide that works from spec sheets instead of vendor bundles. The three lines that decide whether a panel and a power station can work together, a connector decoder for MC4, XT60, and 8mm plugs, the voltage rule that protects your charge port, and why two panels with the same wattage can get opposite answers from the same machine.
A watt-hour sizing guide that works from appliance spec sheets instead of a vendor's shopping page. One formula, real numbers for a fridge, CPAP, Starlink, laptop, and sump pump, and an honest answer on what it takes for a whole house. Most people need a far smaller battery than the marketing suggests, and one popular purchase makes no sense at all.
Apple announced the Mac mini with M6 on August 25, 2026, starting at $899 for 16GB of memory and 256GB of storage. The same base configuration launched at $599 in November 2024. Here is the full price ladder, what the new chip actually changes, what every upgrade costs, and whether a discounted M4 is the smarter buy.
Starlink has renamed its dishes at least twice, shipped a V5, and sells a Mini X that is the same Mini with a second router in the box. Here is which Starlink you own, which four you can actually get in the US today, what each one draws and costs, and which one fits a home, a camper, or a boat.
A Starlink Mini kit is $149, Roam service is $55 a month, and Standby Mode keeps it alive for $10 a month between trips. Here is the real yearly cost of owning one for camping, road trips, and home outages, compared with renting, plus the routers, cables, mounts, and batteries that make it work inside a cabin.
Smartwatch pros and cons, answered with numbers instead of vibes. The three-year cost table (including the subscriptions nobody prices in), what peer-reviewed accuracy studies actually found, where a smart ring beats a watch, and a $40 Casio control group that outlives them all.
Smartphone shipments just hit their lowest second quarter since 2013 while the average phone price jumps 21% to an all-time high. The damage lands hardest at the bottom: the cheap phone is being hollowed out to feed the AI memory boom, and the industry is getting richer as it happens.
Apple raised US prices on every Mac, iPad, and home device on June 25, 2026, eight days after Tim Cook admitted absorbing memory costs had become unsustainable. Micron's 84.9 percent gross margin explains who has the power now, and Apple's escape plan runs through a blacklisted Chinese chipmaker.
