It’s time for Apple to reinstate ICEBlock

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In October, Apple caved to pressure from the Trump administration and removed ICEBlock — and similar apps that crowdsourced the location of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement activity — from its App Store. Apple's stated rationale? The apps could "be used to harm law enforcement officers." But armed-to-the-teeth ICE officers don’t need protection from civilians. Apple had that exactly backward.

That became impossible to ignore on Wednesday, when ICE agent Jonathan Ross killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in cold blood. By now, you don't need me to recount her brutal last moments. But the footage (graphic and disturbing as it is) is out there, and we can see the Trump administration's propaganda about the event for what it is.

ICE was a dangerous force long before this week. This was the agency’s ninth shooting since September. 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025. Around a third of those arrested by ICE agents — often masked and refusing to identify themselves — don’t even have criminal records.

What changed this week was, arguably, that the victim wasn’t a brown-skinned person. ICE claimed the life of a white American citizen, one who, according to her wife, was a kind, loving mom and a Christian. Unfortunately, the US has a dark history of shrugging off violence as long as it’s directed towards a marginalized group. That wasn’t possible for mainstream newsreaders here.

LOS ANGELES, CA  - JANUARY 8, 2026 Dozens, holding photos of Renee Nicole Good, protest her death a day after an ICE agent killed Good in Minneapolis, in front of the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles on January 8, 2026. The protest was organized by Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE). (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA  - JANUARY 8, 2026 Dozens, holding photos of Renee Nicole Good, protest her death a day after an ICE agent killed Good in Minneapolis, in front of the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles on January 8, 2026. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Genaro Molina via Getty Images

On Thursday, Vice President JD Vance smeared Good baselessly, insisting the mother was part of a "left-wing network." He also claimed ICE holds "absolute immunity" when it comes to doing things like killing Americans in broad daylight. Meanwhile, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt framed the deadly incident as the "result of a larger, sinister left-wing movement that has spread across our country." And the FBI has blocked Minnesota's criminal investigation bureau from accessing evidence to complete a thorough examination of the homicide.

In short, an agency with the full backing of the federal government killed an innocent citizen. And while there are tools to inform the public about the likely locations that agency may be acting in, Apple has chosen to keep them from us.

Apple has a history of presenting itself as a safer, socially progressive alternative within Big Tech. Its keynotes are replete with heartfelt testimony about iPhone and Apple Watch features saving lives. It releases Pride-themed accessories to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community, and the company has (so far) resisted government pressure to eliminate its DEI programs. Hell, its modern era was kicked off by the “Here’s to the crazy ones” TV ad, which intercut images of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon and Gandhi — explicitly cloaking its corporate image in civil disobedience and social justice.

A photo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Apple's homepage (2015)
A photo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Apple's homepage (2015)
Apple / The Internet Archive

But the company also wields that progressive image for selfish reasons, wrapping business priorities in the guise of conscientiousness. For example, when government regulations push for openness or interoperability, Apple warns of the security and privacy risks for its users. When Apple tightly controls where you can buy apps, it’s about keeping porn away from the kids. And Apple has decided that the theoretical safety of ICE officers is more valuable than the very real threat they pose to the communities they harass.

ICEBlock's availability on the App Store may not have changed the outcome of Wednesday's events. But it could resume its job as a community informer. It could make it easier to notify the public of where these masked thugs are congregating, perhaps even helping others avoid Good's fate.

Engadget has reached out to Apple for comment on reinstating ICEBlock; we’ll update if we receive a response.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/its-time-for-apple-to-reinstate-iceblock-220802356.html?src=rss

Satechi Slim EX Wireless Series Has Replaceable Batteries, Not E-Waste

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Most people no longer live on a single machine. A MacBook for creative work, a Windows desktop for heavier tasks, an iPad for meetings, and a phone for everything in between. The awkward dance of swapping keyboards, re-learning shortcuts, or tolerating cramped laptop layouts becomes daily routine, and most wireless sets still assume you are loyal to one OS and one device at a time, which feels increasingly out of step with how people actually work.

Satechi’s Slim EX Wireless Series, the EX3 and EX1 keyboards, plus the Slim EX Wireless Mouse, is an attempt to make that juggling act feel natural. All three are designed to work across macOS, Windows, Android, and iPadOS, connect to multiple devices, and use USB-C rechargeable, user-replaceable batteries so they do not become e-waste the moment the original cell starts to fade after a few years of daily charging cycles.

Designer: Satechi

A desk-based setup is where the Slim EX3 Wireless Keyboard lives under a monitor, handling most of the day’s typing. Its full-size layout includes a numeric keypad and navigation keys, quiet scissor-switch keys, and automatic OS-specific key mapping that flips modifiers when you jump from a Mac to a Windows machine. Up to four devices can stay paired over Bluetooth or a 2.4 GHz USB-C dongle, so switching does not mean re-pairing every time you close one laptop and open another.

A smaller table, a shared workspace, or a café is where the EX3 feels too wide. The Slim EX1 Wireless Keyboard steps in with a more compact layout that still keeps the same quiet scissor switches and cross-platform brain. It drops the numeric keypad to save space but keeps the ability to talk to four devices, making it easier to travel light or reclaim desk space without giving up a familiar typing feel.

Both keyboards promise up to five weeks of use on a single charge, depending on how hard you hammer them, and when that internal battery eventually loses capacity, you can replace it instead of replacing the whole board. Charging over USB-C fits into the same cable ecosystem as laptops and phones, which keeps the desk cleaner and the routine simpler, with one fewer proprietary cable to remember when packing a bag.

The Slim EX Wireless Mouse is the low-profile aluminum companion that glides between platforms just as easily. It supports Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz wireless, uses quiet click switches, and has a precision-machined scroll wheel that feels more deliberate than generic plastic. Like the keyboards, it runs on a USB-C rechargeable, user-replaceable battery rated for millions of clicks and scrolls, so it is built for the long haul instead of the upgrade cycle.

The Slim EX series quietly pushes back against disposable accessories and single-platform thinking. Instead of buying one set for each machine or tossing a keyboard when the battery gives up, you get a trio that moves with you between devices and years. For hybrid workers and students who live in that in-between space, having peripherals that are as flexible and long-lived as their setups feels like the right kind of upgrade.

The post Satechi Slim EX Wireless Series Has Replaceable Batteries, Not E-Waste first appeared on Yanko Design.

Amazon is apparently planning a big box store in the Chicago suburbs

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Amazon is making a return, of sorts, to physical retail via plans to build a big-box retail store in the Chicago suburbs, The Information reports. The 225,000-square foot retail space will open in Orland Park, Illinois, and give the company the opportunity to sell more than just groceries after it closed most of its physical bookstores and gift shops in 2022.

The new store will offer in-store shopping, but also act as a fulfillment center for online orders, which could make it similar to competitors like Target and Walmart, and some of Amazon's existing Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh locations. "The proposed development will offer a wide selection of products, including groceries and general merchandise, with accessory services and potentially dining locations for prepared food sold onsite," Amazon wrote in a planning document The Information viewed.

While best known as an online marketplace, Amazon has made multiple attempts to have a physical retail presence. Amazon Books sold books based on what was trending on the company's website, Amazon 4-star sold a variety of products that were rated four or more stars in Amazon reviews and the company's Amazon Go stores sold pre-made food and select groceries via its cashier-less "Just Walk Out" technology. 

Amazon has abandoned basically all those experiments in favor of sticking with the grocery brand it bought in 2017, Whole Foods, and the new one it’s formed in the years since, Amazon Fresh. This new store could be an entirely new concept, or an evolution of Amazon Fresh, but whatever it is, it'll have to be approved by the Orland Park Village Board to move forward, according to the Chicago Tribune.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/amazon-is-apparently-planning-a-big-box-store-in-the-chicago-suburbs-213451978.html?src=rss

Monarch Money deal: New users get one year of access for only $50

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The start of the new year is a great time to get your finances in order, and a good budgeting app can help with that. Instead of laboring over a spreadsheet, you can try one of our favorite budgeting apps for less than usual. Monarch Money is running a sale that gives new users 50 percent off one year of the service, bringing the final cost down to just $50. Just use the code NEWYEAR2026 at checkout to get the discount.

Monarch Money makes for a capable and detailed budgeting companion. You can use the service via apps for iOS, Android, iPadOS or the web, and Monarch also offers a Chrome extension that can sync your Amazon and Target transactions and automatically categorize them. Like other budgeting apps, Monarch Money lets you connect multiple financial accounts and track your money based on where you spend it over time. Monarch offers two different approaches to tracking budgeting (flexible and category budgeting) depending on what fits your life best, and the ability to add a budget widget on your phone so you can know how you're tracking that month.

How budgeting apps turn your raw transactions into visuals you can understand at a glance is one of the big things that differentiates one app from another, and Monarch Money offers multiple graphs and charts to look at for things like spending, investments or categories of your choice based on how you've labelled your expenses. The app can also monitor the spending of you and your partner all in one place, to make it easier to plan together.

The main drawbacks Engadget found in testing Monarch Money were the app's learning curve, and the differences in features (and bugginess) between Monarch's web and mobile versions. Still, for 50 percent off, the Monarch Money is well worth experimenting with if you're trying to save money in 2026, especially if you want to do it collaboratively with a partner.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/monarch-money-deal-new-users-get-one-year-of-access-for-only-50-204507285.html?src=rss

GameSir Pocket Taco vs. 8BitDo FlipPad for Game Boy Gaming

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Almost every mobile controller assumes you want to play in landscape, snapping your phone into a wide handheld that feels great for modern shooters and racing games. This works for most titles, but when you fire up Game Boy-era platformers or vertical arcade classics, the experience feels slightly off, like forcing old games into a shape they were never meant to inhabit, holding them sideways while your thumbs reach for controls that never land right.

GameSir’s Pocket Taco leans into portrait play instead of fighting it, turning your phone into something closer to a classic handheld. It first appeared as the Pocket 1 at Tokyo Game Show, then resurfaced as Pocket Taco just as 8BitDo teased its own vertical FlipPad, setting up a clash of design philosophies aimed at people who want to hold their phones the way they held Game Boys.

Designer: GameSir

The rebrand to Pocket Taco fits the design; the controller clamps to the bottom of your phone like a taco shell. The foldable front accommodates different phone sizes, and soft silicone pads line the clamp area so you are not grinding plastic against glass every time you snap it on, which matters when you pull it out multiple times a day for quick sessions between meetings or commutes.

The control layout separates Pocket Taco from 8BitDo’s FlipPad. Pocket Taco gives you a traditional D-pad, ABXY face buttons, and actual triggers and bumpers on the back. FlipPad keeps everything on the front in a row of circular buttons, which is clever for compactness but less like the shoulder-button ergonomics many players expect from dedicated handhelds, especially during games with heavy simultaneous inputs.

Pocket Taco uses Bluetooth, so it can talk to Android and iOS phones, tablets, and other devices, and it still works when not clamped. FlipPad plugs in over USB-C, which keeps latency low and removes battery anxiety, but ties it to phones with that port and to a tethered style where the controller must stay attached to function at all.

One practical touch is the large cutout at the bottom that leaves your phone’s charging port accessible while the controller is attached, so you can plug in and keep going during long sessions. FlipPad occupies the USB-C port and does not offer passthrough charging, which is fine for short bursts but less ideal for marathon runs that drain the phone before you finish the dungeon.

Pocket Taco runs on a 600 mAh battery with smart power behavior, open to play, close to rest. The trade-off is one more battery to watch and slightly more bulk. FlipPad stays slimmer and battery-free, but leans on your phone for power, shifting the burden and adding a small drain to your phone’s battery during long play sessions.

Pocket Taco and FlipPad are two paths toward the same fantasy, turning a slab of glass into a dedicated retro handheld. Pocket Taco leans into wireless freedom, proper triggers, and charging-while-playing practicality, while FlipPad bets on wired simplicity and a flatter front. For anyone who grew up holding a Game Boy vertically, it is nice to have options that respect that muscle memory instead of pretending mobile gaming should feel like a miniature Xbox stuck in landscape.

The post GameSir Pocket Taco vs. 8BitDo FlipPad for Game Boy Gaming first appeared on Yanko Design.

GameSir Pocket Taco vs. 8BitDo FlipPad for Game Boy Gaming

Posted on by

Almost every mobile controller assumes you want to play in landscape, snapping your phone into a wide handheld that feels great for modern shooters and racing games. This works for most titles, but when you fire up Game Boy-era platformers or vertical arcade classics, the experience feels slightly off, like forcing old games into a shape they were never meant to inhabit, holding them sideways while your thumbs reach for controls that never land right.

GameSir’s Pocket Taco leans into portrait play instead of fighting it, turning your phone into something closer to a classic handheld. It first appeared as the Pocket 1 at Tokyo Game Show, then resurfaced as Pocket Taco just as 8BitDo teased its own vertical FlipPad, setting up a clash of design philosophies aimed at people who want to hold their phones the way they held Game Boys.

Designer: GameSir

The rebrand to Pocket Taco fits the design; the controller clamps to the bottom of your phone like a taco shell. The foldable front accommodates different phone sizes, and soft silicone pads line the clamp area so you are not grinding plastic against glass every time you snap it on, which matters when you pull it out multiple times a day for quick sessions between meetings or commutes.

The control layout separates Pocket Taco from 8BitDo’s FlipPad. Pocket Taco gives you a traditional D-pad, ABXY face buttons, and actual triggers and bumpers on the back. FlipPad keeps everything on the front in a row of circular buttons, which is clever for compactness but less like the shoulder-button ergonomics many players expect from dedicated handhelds, especially during games with heavy simultaneous inputs.

Pocket Taco uses Bluetooth, so it can talk to Android and iOS phones, tablets, and other devices, and it still works when not clamped. FlipPad plugs in over USB-C, which keeps latency low and removes battery anxiety, but ties it to phones with that port and to a tethered style where the controller must stay attached to function at all.

One practical touch is the large cutout at the bottom that leaves your phone’s charging port accessible while the controller is attached, so you can plug in and keep going during long sessions. FlipPad occupies the USB-C port and does not offer passthrough charging, which is fine for short bursts but less ideal for marathon runs that drain the phone before you finish the dungeon.

Pocket Taco runs on a 600 mAh battery with smart power behavior, open to play, close to rest. The trade-off is one more battery to watch and slightly more bulk. FlipPad stays slimmer and battery-free, but leans on your phone for power, shifting the burden and adding a small drain to your phone’s battery during long play sessions.

Pocket Taco and FlipPad are two paths toward the same fantasy, turning a slab of glass into a dedicated retro handheld. Pocket Taco leans into wireless freedom, proper triggers, and charging-while-playing practicality, while FlipPad bets on wired simplicity and a flatter front. For anyone who grew up holding a Game Boy vertically, it is nice to have options that respect that muscle memory instead of pretending mobile gaming should feel like a miniature Xbox stuck in landscape.

The post GameSir Pocket Taco vs. 8BitDo FlipPad for Game Boy Gaming first appeared on Yanko Design.

The Morning After: The best of CES 2026

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We’re wrapping up coverage of the biggest tech show in the world. CES 2026 is almost over, and while we have more stories and wrap-ups to come, here are the most interesting products we’ve spotted, written about and critiqued/praised. That includes our picks for the best of CES. We gave out 15 awards as well as our best of show, and you might be surprised by some of our picks — I know I was.

Read on for some of the best things to come out of Las Vegas this week, but first up, our Best of the Best winner, which was Lego Smart Play. As Engadget’s editor-in-chief Aaron Souppouris put it, “Lego could almost be seen as the antithesis of the typical CES product.”

Regardless of trends, Lego has always persisted. And in 2026, it’s getting much smarter.

TMA
Lego

The system consists of a Smart Brick, Tags and Minifigures. They’re packed with modern technology, so they can respond to how you play with them or the sets you build. The Smart Brick has a 4.1mm ASIC chip, which Lego says is smaller than a standard Lego stud. It senses things like motion, orientation and magnetic fields, but also has a tiny built-in speaker, which produces audio “tied to live play actions,” not just canned clips.

It’s hard to explain it in only a few words (we’ve got a deep-dive hands-on right here), but what immediately drew me in was the lack of smartphone pairing and screens. The ability of each part to detect and interact with others can lead to some ridiculous setups, whether it’s ducks and police officers or a helicopter or an X-Wing.

Naturally, it’s a little pricier than basic Lego, but not out of the realm of being a special gift or birthday present. One of the first sets, with a smart Darth Vader Minifigure, one Smart Brick and one Smart Tag, is $70.

We'll be back to our regularly scheduled newsletter next week. Have a great weekend!

— Mat Smith

TMA
Engadget

With no further ado, here are our winners.

Best robot: Switchbot Onero H1

Best accessibility tech: WheelMove

Best TV: LG’s Wallpaper TV

Best AI hardware: Subtle Voicebuds

Best smart home: IKEA Matter-compatible smart home

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Engadget

Best home theater: Samsung HW-QS90H

Best audio: Shokz OpenFit Pro

Best outdoor tech: Tone Outdoors T1

Best toy: Lego Smart Play

Best PC or laptop: Dell XPS 14 + 16

Best health tech: Eyebot eye test booth

Best gaming tech: ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo

Best mobile tech: Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold

Most promising concept: Lenovo Legion Pro Rollable

Best emerging technology: IXI autofocus lenses

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Engadget

On Monday, which feels like an age ago, Jensen Huang shared the latest from NVIDIA. While the presentation was more a refresher than a barrage of new announcements, it was a pretty low-key presentation, with lots of AI chat. One announcement was Alpamayo, a family of open-source reasoning models designed to guide autonomous vehicles through difficult driving situations. The centerpiece is Alpamayo 1, a 10-billion-parameter chain-of-thought system NVIDIA says can drive more like a human.

When it comes to tech we all might use, we had to wait for a separate event, when NVIDIA announced DLSS 4.5 and G-Sync Pulsar. For both features, you’ll need a 50-series GPU. You got one, right?

Continue reading.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-193045065.html?src=rss

WhatsApp might soon be subject to stricter scrutiny under the EU’s Digital Services Act

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Meta's messaging app WhatsApp could soon be subject to deeper scrutiny (and punishment) under the European Commission's Digital Services Act, Reuters reports. Because the app's broadcasting feature WhatsApp Channels grew to around 51.7 million average monthly active users in the European Union in the first six months of 2025, the feature has crossed the 45-million-person barrier that lets DSA rules apply.

A platform is designated as a "very large online platform" or VLOP once it has 45 million monthly users or more, according to the European Commission. Once an app or service passes that amount, it's subject to the DSA and all its rules about how digital platforms should operate, particularly around removing illegal or harmful content. Companies can be fined up to six percent of their global annual revenue for not complying with the DSA.

WhatsApp traditionally functions as a private messaging app, but its Channels feature, which lets users make one-sided posts to anyone who follows their channel, does look a lot more like Meta's other social media platforms. "So here we would indeed designate potentially WhatsApp for WhatsApp Channels and I can confirm that the Commission is actively looking into it and I wouldn't exclude a future designation," a Commission spokesperson said in a daily news briefing Reuters viewed.

Engadget has asked Meta to comment on WhatsApp’s possible new designation. We’ll update this article if we hear back.

The possibility that WhatsApp could become a regulatory target in the EU was first reported in November 2025, but Meta has been dealing with DSA-related fines since well before then. Meta was charged with violating the EU law in October 2025 because of how it asks users to report illegal content on Facebook and Instagram. Earlier that month, a Dutch court also ordered the company to change how it presents the timelines on its platforms because people in the Netherlands were not "sufficiently able to make free and autonomous choices about the use of profiled recommendation systems" in the company's apps.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/whatsapp-might-soon-be-subject-to-stricter-scrutiny-under-the-eus-digital-services-act-191000354.html?src=rss

DigiEra OmniCore at CES 2026: NAS That Searches Files Like ChatGPT

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For most designers and filmmakers, storage is the quiet problem that never gets a mood board. Projects start on phones, move through cameras and laptops, and end up scattered across drives and cloud folders that you half remember naming six months ago. CES 2026 is full of AI-driven devices and next-gen connectivity, but DigiEra’s booth is interesting because it treats storage as part of the creative environment, not just a spec to tick off on a spreadsheet.

The lineup tells a single story across four products. OmniCore is the modular, all-flash AI NAS that wants to be the studio’s private brain. Endura is the rugged field drive that can live in a bag without babying. Portable Hub SSD is the tiny block that turns a phone or camera into a serious capture and editing station. The Diamond Magnetic Portable SSD is the piece that lives on the back of an iPhone, turning storage into something closer to jewelry than IT gear.

Designer: DigiEra

OmniCore: AI NAS as a Private Studio Brain

The pain of hunting for assets across old drives and cloud accounts is real. OmniCore is DigiEra’s answer, a modular all-flash AI NAS designed to sit in a studio and quietly index everything. It supports up to 80 TB of SSD storage across eight 2.5-inch SATA bays and two M.2 slots, all hot-swappable, so the box can grow with a studio instead of being replaced every time a project spikes in size or a client asks for all the raw footage from three years ago.

OmniCore is not just a fast box of drives. A Rockchip RK3588 CPU, 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM, and a 6 TOPS NPU let it run AI tasks locally, from automatic image tagging and semantic search to transcription, document analysis, conversational chat, and clip generation. That means a designer can type “blue packaging concept with foil logo” and have the NAS surface relevant shots, instead of scrolling through folders named final underscore final underscore v3.

The privacy-first angle matters here. OmniCore is designed to work fully offline, with no cloud dependency, which is important when client work, unreleased campaigns, or personal archives cannot leave the building. Dual LAN ports, including 2.5 GbE, and Wi-Fi 6 support let it serve multiple editors or designers at once without feeling like a bottleneck, and Docker support means it can host custom tools alongside its own AI engine for people who need more than a basic file server.

The physical experience is part of the design. The cube-like form factor with front-loading SSD modules makes storage feel tangible and approachable, more like a card catalog than a server rack. Drives slide in and out on small trays, so expanding from a few terabytes to tens of terabytes is a matter of minutes, not a weekend migration project where everything has to stop. For small studios, that kind of modularity is as much a design decision as a technical one.

Endura Portable SSD: Rugged Speed with a Material Story

Endura is the drive that lives in the camera bag and follows people to shoots. DigiEra bills it as the world’s first portable SSD with an aluminum–carbon-fiber shell, rated IP65 for water, dust, and shock resistance. That combination of materials gives it a technical, motorsport-like feel, while also signaling that it can handle being tossed into a backpack, clipped to a rig, or dropped on a sidewalk without needing a protective case wrapped around a protective case.

Under the shell, Endura uses USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 over USB-C, delivering up to 2,000 MB/s read and 1,800 MB/s write speeds in capacities from 512 GB to 4 TB. For photographers dumping RAW stills between locations or filmmakers backing up cards on set, that means less time watching progress bars and more time shooting, with a drive that looks like it belongs in a design-conscious kit and can survive the environments where most shoots actually happen.

Portable Hub SSD: One Block to Replace the Dongle Pile

The Portable Hub SSD is the antidote to the usual tangle of hubs, drives, and chargers. It wraps the same 20 Gbps SSD core in a compact aluminum block that also acts as a hub, combining high-speed storage, PD fast charging, and extra USB-C connectivity. Plug it into a phone, tablet, or laptop, and it becomes both a scratch disk and an expansion port, turning one cable into a complete mobile workstation.

The fold-out USB-C plug and side ports make it particularly friendly to iPhones and USB-C cameras. Instead of hanging a drive and a hub off a gimbal or handheld rig, one block adds space for ProRes or LOG footage and passes power through to keep the phone or camera alive. For designers who sketch on tablets or edit on ultraportables, it is the kind of object that quietly simplifies the everyday carry, handling data and power from a single point without adding bulk or visual noise.

Diamond Magnetic Portable SSD: Storage as Visible Accessory

The Diamond Magnetic Portable SSD is the piece that never leaves the phone. It snaps magnetically to the back of an iPhone 15 or 16 Pro and records 4K 60 FPS ProRes video directly to external storage, lifting the ceiling on how long you can shoot without cages, rigs, or bulky battery grips. For content creators who rely on their phone as a primary camera, that is a big shift in what is possible with a pocket-sized setup.

The diamond-encrusted, circular design makes the drive look closer to a compact mirror or piece of jewelry than a tech accessory. Underneath, it still runs USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 over USB-C at up to 2,000 MB/s read and 1,800 MB/s write, in capacities up to 4 TB. That mix of performance and visual polish means it can stay on the phone in a meeting, a shoot, or a café without feeling out of place, turning storage into something you actually want to show rather than hide in a pocket until needed.

DigiEra at CES 2026: Turning Storage into a Creative Toolkit

OmniCore anchors the studio as a private, AI-enabled brain that knows where every file lives and can answer questions in natural language. Endura and Portable Hub SSD handle the messy middle, moving data safely and quickly between cameras, phones, and laptops, with materials and form factors that feel deliberate rather than generic. The Diamond Magnetic SSD lives on the phone, turning storage into something you actually want to show. That is DigiEra’s real story at CES 2026: storage treated not as an afterthought or a cloud subscription, but as a set of designed objects that respect the way creative work actually moves through the day, from the pocket to the field to the desk and back.

The post DigiEra OmniCore at CES 2026: NAS That Searches Files Like ChatGPT first appeared on Yanko Design.

Save up to 81 percent on ExpressVPN two-year plans right now

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ExpressVPN is back on sale again, and its two-year plans are up to 81 percent off right now. You can get the Advanced tier for $88 for 28 months. This is marked down from the $392 that this time frame normally costs. On a per-month basis, it works out to roughly $3.14 for the promo period.

We’ve consistently liked ExpressVPN because it’s fast, easy to use and widely available across a large global server network. In fact, it's our current pick for best premium VPN. One of the biggest drawbacks has always been its high cost, and this deal temporarily solves that issue.

In our review we were able to get fast download and upload speeds, losing only 7 percent in the former and 2 percent in the latter worldwide. We found that it could unblock Netflix anywhere, and its mobile and desktop apps were simple to operate. We gave ExpressVPN an overall score of 85 out of 100.

The virtual private network service now has three tiers. Basic is cheaper with fewer features, while Pro costs more and adds extra perks like support for 14 simultaneous devices and a password manager. Advanced sits in the middle and includes the password manager but only supports 12 devices.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/save-up-to-81-percent-on-expressvpn-two-year-plans-right-now-180602273.html?src=rss