• Ubisoft is shutting down a studio 16 days after it unionized

    January 7, 2026

    Ubisoft is closing a Canadian studio just over two weeks after it unionized. In a dizzying claim, the company told GamesIndustry.biz that the closure of Ubisoft Halifax was part of “company-wide actions to streamline operations” and unrelated to the unionization. On December 22, Ubisoft Halifax announced that 61 of its workers had joined the Game & Media Workers Guild of Canada. At the time, the studio’s lead programmer, Jon Huffman, told CTV News that 73.8 percent of employees voted in favor of unionizing. Ominously in hindsight, he had described the decision as a “huge relief.” The studio was working on…

  • Skylight debuts Calendar 2 to keep your family organized

    January 7, 2026

    Skylight may have started as a digital picture frame, but today, the company is more focused on helping families stay organized with shared calendars, lists, meal planning tools and more. At CES 2026, the company debuted its latest product: the Skylight Calendar 2, which offers a sleeker design than the original 15-inch calendar, but smaller than the 27-inch wall-mounted Calendar Max. Like its larger counterpart, the new digital calendar app and family organizer also lets you swap out the frame for different colors to better match your home’s decor. The biggest selling point isn’t the digital screen itself, but the…

  • IKEA’s first CES appearance included a $6 Matter smart bulb

    January 7, 2026

    I know IKEA is all about small, efficient spaces, but their meeting room inside the Venetian during the company’s first-ever CES was the same size as my (not large) living room. Plenty of people were as excited as I was to see what the Swedish designers brought with them to the show and the room was thick with humans. A bowl full of BELÖNING bars helped ease my mounting claustrophobia and I was able to check out the new smart home lineup. Like most things IKEA, the 21 Matter-compatible smart home devices are simple, sleek and silly affordable. They include…

  • Caterpillar taps Nvidia to bring AI to its construction equipment

    January 7, 2026

    Caterpillar is diving deeper into incorporating AI and automation into its fleet of construction machinery through a partnership with semiconductor giant Nvidia. The construction equipment giant is piloting an AI assistive system in its mid-size Cat 306 CR Mini Excavator. Dubbed “Cat AI,” the system was built using Nvidia’s Jetson Thor physical AI platform, and is being demoed at CES on Wednesday. Brandon Hootman, vice president of data and AI at Caterpillar, told TechCrunch that Cat AI was built on a fleet of AI agents and can help answer a machine operator’s questions, allow them to access resources, offer safety…

  • iPolish brings color-changing press-on smart nails to CES

    January 7, 2026

    In the original, and best Total Recall, you may remember a scene in which Rekall’s receptionist changes her nail polish by using a digital pen. Now, after only 35 years, a company came to CES 2026 with a vision for such a gadget that actually works outside of that pricey sci-fi movie. The company is iPolish, and it makes press-on acrylic nails that, when you apply an electric charge, change color almost like magic. In order to enjoy kaleidoscopic nails, you’ll need to charge the wand, which then connects to your phone. Once you’ve selected your color of choice, you…

  • How Quilt solved the heat pump’s biggest challenge

    January 7, 2026

    Smart home startup Quilt introduced a three-zone heat pump on Tuesday that promises to maintain efficiency even in the kinds of demanding conditions that stymie traditional incumbents. The three-zone unit does what it says on the label: one outdoor unit is now capable of driving three indoor heads, as they’re known in the HVAC world. It’s a product that will make large installations simpler and cheaper while minimizing the footprint outside the home, and it’s key to the startup’s plans for expansion, which were recently turbocharged by a $20 million Series B focused on expanding sales. But the real story…

  • Using Smart Brick technology to get kids to play together

    January 7, 2026

    Lego’s Smart Play system announced at CES 2026 earlier this week is a new embrace of digital technology that we haven’t seen from the company before. While the demo Lego gave at its press conference on Monday was a good start to showing what Smart Bricks are capable of, it really isn’t a substitute for seeing it in person. I was able to get an extended demo that answered many of my questions about how the system will work once Lego fans of all ages get their hands on the first Smart Play sets. As I detailed yesterday, the Smart…

  • Warner Bros. Discovery rejects Paramount’s bid again, calls it a ‘leveraged buyout’

    January 7, 2026

    The bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) and its extensive library of hit TV shows and films like “Harry Potter,” “Game of Thrones” and the DC Comics titles, is dragging on. The studio on Wednesday said its board had unanimously rejected Paramount Skydance’s revised $108.4 billion bid, calling the proposal a “leveraged buyout” that would saddle the company with $87 billion in debt. In a letter to shareholders, WBD urged them to reject the offer, saying the “extraordinary amount” of debt Paramount would need to raise heightens the risk of the deal falling through, and instead recommended they vote…

  • Clear Drop is trying to do something about all those plastic bags under your sink

    January 7, 2026

    Even if you bring home as few bags as possible — using reusable bags, carrying purchases home with your own two hands — soft plastics sill accumulate. I certainly have a collection with one flimsy plastic sack filled with dozens or hundreds of others. I plan to do something with it… eventually. Unfortunately, there aren’t a ton of options for what to do with those soft plastics, as most recycling facilities can’t accept them. But no one likes seeing them end up in oceans and rivers and stuck up in trees. So I was excited to see the Clear Drop…

  • Spotify lowers monetization threshold for video podcasts

    January 7, 2026

    Spotify is lowering its eligibility criteria for podcasters to monetize their videos on the platform, dropping the minimum episode requirement to three, minimum consumption hours to 2,000, and engaged audience member threshold to 1,000 over the last 30 days. When the company introduced its partner program to monetize video content last year, creators needed to have published 12 episodes, hit 10,000 consumption hours over the prior 30 days, and had at least 2,000 people stream their content in the last 30 days to be part of the program. The program pays podcasters according to the number of premium users who…