Lead Hacker

Wood you look at that. Motorola is kicking off hot foldable summer in style — and a little early this year. This time around it’s offering not two but three Razr models with the introduction of the premium Razr Ultra. It comes with some notable upgrades, and all three phones get some quality-of-life improvements like a sturdier hinge. But the hardware updates are otherwise minimal while Moto leans hard into eye-catching colors and finishes for its fun flip phone. Let’s just say it up front: the Ultra costs $1,299. That’s like, Samsung Galaxy Ultra territory, which is just a lot of money for a phone. For that price you get a generous 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage in the base model and a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, which is the Android flagship processor du jour. The Ultra offers up to 30W wireless charging and 68W wired charging. It also has a slightly larger 7-inch inner screen than the Razr and Razr Plus, which gets a little brighter at up to 4,500 nits compared to 3,000 nits....

That’s not an Apple Watch — it’s the Moto Watch Fit. Phones aren't the only gadgets that Motorola is announcing today. But whereas the new Razr foldables evoke a sense of nostalgia, its latest smartwatch and earbuds summon a powerful feeling of déjà vu. Handling the new Moto Watch Fit and Moto Buds Loop, it's like I'm looking at Motorola-flavored clones of the Apple Watch and the Bose Ultra Open . And wouldn't you know it, the placard near the Buds Loop demo models conveniently says "Sound by Bose." I mean, just look at the Moto Watch Fit next to my Apple Watch Series 10. Motorola isn't the first smartwatch maker to copy Apple's design language - see Samsung's 2024 Galaxy Watch lineup - but it is disappointing when you consider the OG Moto 360 . With a stylish circular face, it was one of the standout smartwatches in the early days of Android Wear. This new Moto Watch Fit is technically the first Motorola-made smartwatch in nearly a decade (th...

The first time I met Jon Friedman , corporate vice president of design and research at Microsoft, was in 2019 when he was spearheading a new open approach to design at Microsoft to make its hardware and software look like it came from one company. That's a largely successful work in progress, so these days Friedman has, like a lot of Microsoft employees, been focused on AI. I spoke to Friedman last week, ahead of the redesigned Microsoft 365 Copilot app announcement, to get a better understanding of the impact AI is having on human designers and creators. "The change is quite dramatic, and the opportunity is quite dramatic," says Friedman. "The job changed for us. The entire industry and Microsoft were trying to figure out what we can do with this new material that helps adapt computing to people, and it turns out you can do a lot and you can do a lot fast." In recent months, Friedman's own job has changed because of AI, so he's focused on the cont...

Three men and two women wearing black combat gear and standing together side by side on a dirt road. | Image: Netflix It only took five years, but Netflix has finally locked in its plan to premiere The Old Guard ’s long awaited sequel. Today, Netflix announced that director Victoria Mahoney’s ( You , Lovecraft Country ) The Old Guard 2 is slated to debut on July 2nd. Rather than dropping a trailer, Netflix released a handful of new stills from the film, and teased some of its plot details. Set some time after the first movie, The Old Guard 2 continues the story of previously-immortal warrior Andy (Charlize Theron) and her team of expert soldiers who have all been blessed / cursed with never ending lives.  With Quynh (Veronica Ngô), another immortal, now free from her underwater prison and on the hunt for revenge, Andy and her teammates Nile (KiKi Layne), Joe (Marwan Kenzari), Nicky (Luca Marinelli) have no choice but to fight one of their own. Because they can both die, the ...

We’re used to seeing Predators do the hunting — it’s in the name, after all. But it looks like the roles will be reversed somewhat in Predator: Badlands , at least according to this new teaser trailer. Directed by Dan Trachtenberg — who also helmed the excellent Predator spinoff Prey — Badlands follows a young Predator (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) who becomes outcast from his people, is stuck on a dangerous planet where everything wants to kill him, and is forced to team up with a human (Elle Fanning) to survive. Of course, he also has to be a Predator as well, and it looks like there’s an especially dangerous creature that he wants or needs to defeat, in order to gain back some respect. Much like Prey , it sounds like a clever twist on the formula, as it makes a Predator a protagonist for once. Badlands hit theaters on November 7th, but it isn’t the only expansion of the Predator universe in the works. The animated anthology Killer of Killers starts streaming on Hulu on ...

Microsoft revealed earlier this year that LG TVs would get access to Xbox Cloud Gaming, and now the Xbox TV app is rolling out to select LG smart TV models starting today. The Xbox app will let LG TV owners stream Xbox games directly to their TVs, and use a wireless controller to play them. The Xbox app will be available for LG’s 2022 OLED TVs, select 2023 smart TVs, and newer models and smart monitors that are running webOS24 or higher. It will also soon be available for LG’s portable StanbyME screens. The Xbox app is built into the LG gaming portal on the latest 2025 LG TVs, but for older models you’ll have to head into the LG app store and download the Xbox app. LG’s 2022 OLED TVs and select 2023 smart TVs will also need the latest firmware upgrade to run the Xbox app, and you’ll have to connect a Bluetooth-enabled controller and subscribe to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to stream Xbox games to your TV. Microsoft first launched its Xbox TV app on Samsung’s range of smart TVs in 20...

Last night, Elon Musk did what he does best : promise “millions†of autonomous Tesla vehicles would be on the road by the end of next year. It’s become a familiar refrain. Every year since at least 2020, Musk has promised Tesla vehicles will finally achieve their full self-driving capabilities. And every year, those promises fail to come to fruition. Tesla has come under investigation for numerous fatalities involving its vehicles and its driver assist features, Autopilot and Full Self-Driving. His rivals continue to outpace him . And Musk has even acknowledged his overly optimistic outlook by labeling himself “the boy who cried FSD.†“I predict that there will be millions of Teslas operating autonomously, fully autonomously, in the second half of next year.†That fantasy of millions of autonomous Tesla vehicles is getting closer to reality, Musk promised again last night. You’ll be able to sleep in your car and wake up at your destination by the end of this ...