• Google’s AI Mode can now tap into your Gmail and Photos to provide tailored responses

    January 22, 2026

    AI Mode, Google’s conversational Search feature for complex questions, is getting more personalized. The tech giant announced on Thursday that it’s bringing “Personal Intelligence” to AI Mode, enabling it to tap into your Gmail and Google Photos to provide more individualized responses. The company first debuted Personal Intelligence last week in the Gemini app to allow the AI assistant to tailor its responses by connecting across your Google ecosystem, starting with Gmail, Photos, Search, and YouTube history. The opt-in feature is now starting to roll out to AI Mode to Google AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers in English in…

  • Spotify’s Prompted Playlist lets you describe exactly what you want to hear

    January 22, 2026

    Ahead of its upcoming price hike, Spotify is rolling out a more advanced AI playlist feature in the US and Canada. Prompted Playlist, which the company trialed in New Zealand late last year, lets subscribers “control the Spotify algorithm,” as the company describes it. “You’re not just asking for music, you’re shaping how Spotify goes about discovering it for you.” For example, you can guide it to make a playlist of songs you’ve saved to your Library but haven’t listened to yet. (It can tap into your entire Spotify history.) Or, you can tell it to round up songs from…

  • Anthropic has to keep revising its technical interview test so you can’t cheat on it with Claude

    January 22, 2026

    Since 2024, Anthropic’s performance optimization team has given job applicants a take-home test to make sure they know their stuff. But as AI coding tools have gotten better, the test has had to change a lot to stay ahead of AI-assisted cheating. Team lead Tristan Hume described the history of the challenge in a blog post on Wednesday. “Each new Claude model has forced us to redesign the test,” Hume writes. “When given the same time limit, Claude Opus 4 outperformed most human applicants. That still allowed us to distinguish the strongest candidates — but then, Claude Opus 4.5 matched…

  • Get one year of access to one of our favorite budgeting apps for only $50

    January 22, 2026

    A new year is the perfect time to get your spending in order, and if you’re not trying to build your own spreadsheet, budgeting apps are one of the best ways to do it. To save yourself some money in the process, you can pick up a year-long subscription to Monarch Money, one of Engadget’s favorite budgeting apps, for just $50 if you use code NEWYEAR2026 at checkout and you’re a new subscriber. That’s a 50 percent discount on the service’s normal $100 price. Monarch Money makes for a capable and detailed budgeting companion. You can use the service via…

  • Snapchat gives parents new insights into teens’ screen time and friends

    January 22, 2026

    Two days after settling a lawsuit accusing Snapchat of causing social media addiction and mental health issues, Snap announced that it’s introducing new parental controls. Parents and guardians can now use Snapchat’s “Family Center” tool to see how much time their teen is spending on the platform, along with additional details about the new friends they add. With these new features, Snap is likely looking to appease regulators and parents over concerns about safety and screen time on its platform. Parents can now see the average amount of time their teen spent on Snapchat each day over the previous week.…

  • Snapchat gives parents more info on who their kids are talking to

    January 22, 2026

    Snapchat is updating its parental control features to give parents more detailed information about who their kids are connecting with in the app and which features they use the most. The app’s Family Center already gives parents visibility into their child’s friend list, but it will now surface contextual details when a new friend is added. For example, the feature could highlight that the two share mutual friends or have each other’s contact info saved in their phones. It could also indicate that they are classmates if both users have joined the same in-app “community.” If the two have no…

  • Quadric rides the shift from cloud AI to on-device inference — and it’s paying off

    January 22, 2026

    Companies and governments are looking for tools to run AI locally in a a bid slash cloud infrastructure costs and build sovereign capability. Quadric, a chip-IP startup founded by veterans of early bitcoin mining firm 21E6, is trying to power that shift, scaling beyond automotive into laptops and industrial devices, with its on-device inference technology. That expansion is already paying off. Quadric posted $15 million to $20 million in licensing revenue in 2025, up from around $4 million in 2024, CEO Veerbhan Kheterpal (pictured above, center) told TechCrunch in an interview. The company, which is based in San Francisco and…

  • YouTube CEO promises more AI features in 2026

    January 22, 2026

    YouTube is just as wary of the rise of AI slop as you, and that’s why more AI-generated content is coming to the platform in the near future. In a lengthy outlining YouTube’s 2026 plans, CEO Neal Mohan said the company will continue to embrace this new “creative frontier” by soon allowing its creators to throw together Shorts using their AI-generated likeness. Mohan didn’t elaborate further about how this feature will work when it launches, but acknowledged the “critical” issue of deepfakes currently polluting the web, and reaffirmed his company’s support for new such as the NO FAKES Act. YouTube…

  • Tiger Global, Microsoft to fully exit Walmart-backed PhonePe via its IPO

    January 22, 2026

    Tiger Global and Microsoft are primed to fully exit PhonePe, the Walmart-backed Indian payments startup which has updated its IPO filing, offering investors and market watchers a rare peek at how global investors are cashing out of the venture boom via India’s public markets. On Wednesday, PhonePe updated its IPO prospectus (PDF), detailing how many shares are up for sale. Tiger Global and Microsoft are offering up their full stakes in the company, while Walmart is choosing to retain its majority stake, and selling up to 45.9 million shares (about 9% of the company). Up to 50.66 million shares are…

  • The best fitness trackers for 2026

    January 22, 2026

    If you’re looking to get fit, sleep better or just keep a closer eye on your health, a fitness wearable is a great place to start. Whether you’re into intense workouts or just want to hit your step goal each day, the best fitness trackers available today can offer loads of helpful features, from sleep tracking and resting heart rate monitoring to built-in GPS and stress tracking. Some are even subtle enough to wear 24/7, like smart rings, while others double as stylish smartwatches. There are great options out there for beginners as well as more advanced users, and the…