• ExpressVPN two-year plans are up to 78 percent off

    January 18, 2026

    ExpressVPN is back on sale again, and its two-year plans are up to 78 percent off right now. You can get the Advanced tier for $101 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 $3.59 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…

  • How YC-backed Bucket Robotics survived its first CES

    January 18, 2026

    The weather in Las Vegas wasn’t looking good. The plan had been that each employee of YC-backed Bucket Robotics would carry parts of their booth in their luggage to the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show. But CEO and founder Matt Puchalski didn’t want to take the chance that one (or all) of their flights would be delayed. So he rented a Hyundai Santa Fe and packed it up.  “It was… it was tight,” he said with a laugh on the show floor.   It took 12 hours driving in the rain, but the gear – and Puchalski – made it safely to Las Vegas, and so began the young company’s first-ever CES. San Francisco-based Bucket Robotics was just one of thousands of companies exhibiting at the annual tech conference, a speck of sand on a beach…

  • Major Australian EV charging provider rolls out solution to vandalism, theft

    January 18, 2026

    Sick of getting to an electric vehicle (EV) charging station, only to find the cables have been cut off by thieves looking to steal copper inside? Evie Networks, one of Australia’s largest EV charging providers, is rolling out a solution: CableGuard protectors from a UK company called Formula Space. CarExpert first spotted the cable protectors at Evie’s Chelsea location in Melbourne, and Evie has confirmed it has also introduced CableGuard at five other locations including Toowoomba, Queensland and Bayside, Victoria, with the other locations being in the Dandenong region. CarExpert can save you thousands on a new car. Click here…

  • Microsoft issues emergency fix after a security update left some Windows 11 devices unable to shut down

    January 18, 2026

    If you weren’t able to shut down your Windows 11 device recently, Microsoft has rolled out an emergency fix addressing a couple of critical bugs that popped up with its latest January 2026 Windows security update. The latest “out-of-band” update repairs an issue for some Windows 11 devices that would only restart when users tried to shut down or hibernate. The same update restores the ability for Windows 10 and Windows 11 users to log into their devices via remote connection apps. Microsoft said the inability to shut down or hibernate affected Windows 11 devices using Secure Launch, a security…

  • Threads edges out X in daily mobile users, new data shows

    January 18, 2026

    A report from market intelligence firm Similarweb suggests that Meta’s Threads is now seeing more daily usage than Elon Musk’s X on mobile devices. While X still dominates Threads on the web, the Threads mobile app for iOS and Android has continued to see an increase in daily active users over the past several months. Similarweb’s data shows that Threads had 141.5 million daily active users on iOS and Android as of January 7, 2026, after months of growth, while X has 125 million daily active users on mobile devices. This appears to be the result of longer-term trends, rather…

  • Three months of Audible is on sale for $3 right now

    January 18, 2026

    Have a hankering for some audiobooks? Audible is holding one heck of a sale right now, giving users three months of access for $3. That’s a dollar per month. This is something of a winter tradition for the Amazon-owned platform and the promotion ends on January 21. An Audible subscription grants one audiobook per month to keep. This can be selected from a massive catalog of new releases and bestsellers. The collection here has just about everything. Amazon However, it’s easy to plow through a single book in a month. Users also get streaming access to thousands of curated titles.…

  • TechCrunch Mobility: ‘Physical AI’ enters the hype machine

    January 18, 2026

    Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for all things “future of transportation.” To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! It’s been a minute, folks! As you might recall, the newsletter took a little holiday break. We’re back and well into 2026. And a lot has happened since the last edition.  I spent the first week of the year at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. And while I wrote about this last January, it’s worth repeating: U.S. automakers have left the building.  What has filled the void in the Las…

  • New users can get a year of one of our favorite budgeting apps for only $50

    January 18, 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…

  • Moxie Marlinspike has a privacy-conscious alternative to ChatGPT

    January 18, 2026

    If you’re at all concerned about privacy, the rise of AI personal assistants can feel alarming. It’s difficult to use one without sharing personal information, which is retained by the model’s parent company. With OpenAI already testing advertising, it’s easy to imagine the same data collection that fuels Facebook and Google creeping into your chatbot conversations. A new project, launched in December by Signal co-founder Moxie Marlinspike, is showing what a privacy-conscious AI service might look like. Confer is designed to look and feel like ChatGPT or Claude, but the backend is arranged to avoid data collection, with the open-source…

  • One of our favorite budgeting apps is only $50 for the year for new users

    January 18, 2026

    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,…