What’s replacing your smartphone? Here’s what’s coming next

Let’s be real: Smartphones are getting out of hand, literally. 

We traded pocket space for bigger screens, better cameras and more power. Some of these glass bricks are the size of a paperback novel and about as easy to use one-handed. 

Even Marty Cooper, the man who invented the cell phone, told me directly that the future of communication is a chip embedded behind our ears. No screen to crack. Just an invisible little whisper bot baked into your skull. Sounds crazy, but so did the idea of Instagram in your pocket, 30 years ago.

The phone is evolving, fast. Here’s what’s trying to eat its lunch:

⌚ Wearables that actually do stuff

Your Apple Watch or Pixel Watch can already handle calls, texts, payments and your resting heart rate. One tap, and you’re checking vitals or pausing a playlist. Smart rings (Oura, Samsung, etc.) are slowly taking over, too. Congratulations, you’re engaged to your biometric data.

And yes, we have real-life Star Trek-style comms badges coming. Beam me up, notification settings.

🤖 AI wearables … flopped

The Humane AI Pin promised screen-free, voice-first living. Reality? It was glitchy, sluggish and hotter than a toaster. Humane’s now offloading its tech to HP.

The Rabbit R1? Same idea, different shape. Still clunky. Still not your phone’s final boss. 

The only intelligent thing was your decision not to buy one.

🕶️ Smart glasses are plotting

Continue reading

Lights, candles, action

⚡ Ready to brighten up your space? I’ll light the way.

  • These night-lights (9% off) automatically turn on at dusk and off at dawn.
  • Stick some cabinet lights (15% off) anywhere you need a little glow-up.
  • Twist the dial on these dimmable lights (5% off) to set the perfect mood.
  • Zap any candle wick with an electric lighter (23% off) and it’s lit.
  • Grab a candle warmer (20% off) for cozy vibes without the fire risk. 

🌃 Curtain call: Night owl or napper? These blackout curtains (25% off) block out the world for a pitch-black snooze.

The Satanic space flight

Open/download audio

Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket launch with Katy Perry and Gayle King is under fire online. Not for science, but for satanic symbols and staged space drama.

🪐 A fishy planet: Scientists just got a whiff of something suspicious on K2-18b, a distant “hycean” world 120 light-years away. While scanning its atmosphere, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope picked up dimethyl sulfide, a gas that, here on Earth, only comes from living things like plankton. Looks like SpongeBob’s nemesis finally made it to the big time. 

Three per day

Satellite or rocket parts crash back to Earth. A 4-inch shard from the ISS punched through a Florida roof last month, as if those hurricanes weren’t bad enough. We may hit 15 daily as Starlink and Amazon’s Kuiper launch more satellites. Did you hear about the film they’re making, where Dallas gets destroyed by space junk? Debris Does Dallas. (Thank you for that chuckle.)

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Gmail power user with attachment issues? Type “has:attachment larger:10M” to instantly find and delete space-hogging emails.

Shelf control

📦 Need more space? Nah, you just need smarter storage.

🤫 Your secret’s safe with me: Stash your valuables in plain sight with a wall safe (18% off) that looks like an outlet.

⌨️ iPad typing trick: Did you know you can use the space bar as a trackpad? Just tap and hold the space bar, wait for the keys to fade out and you’ll be able to move the cursor through text easily. Trying to select text? While still holding down, tap once on the keyboard with another finger, then let go. You can now highlight the text you want.

🚀 Baby, you’re a satanist: People can be so weird. Katy Perry, Lauren Sánchez and four other high-profile women just flew 66.5 miles above Earth in a Blue Origin rocket, crossing the Kármán line, officially entering space during the 11-minute joyride. Conspiracy theorists on X took to declaring the launch a satanic hoax filmed in a Hollywood pool, using green screens and scuba tanks, and that the mission patch is a satanic goat sigil if you squint, flip it and lose your mind. 

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Press the space bar in Chrome to scroll down a web page. Hit Shift + space bar to scroll back up. No mouse needed!

$3 million

How much NASA is offering to anyone who can invent tech that recycles space poop. Why? Well, there are already 96 bags of human waste sitting on the moon from the Apollo missions. NASA wants to avoid adding to the mess or hauling it back to Earth by turning it into something useful. Uh … space compost, anyone?

28 seconds

How much longer a day on Uranus just got. Scientists studied a decade of data from the Hubble Space Telescope to more accurately measure the planet’s rotation. Turns out it now takes 17 hours, 14 minutes and 52 seconds for one full spin. Hey, why don’t scientists trust Uranus? Because it’s always up to something cheeky. Come on, that was funny.

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Quickly mute and unmute on Zoom by holding down the space bar.

Free up space on Windows: Storage Sense automatically clears out stuff you don’t need, like temporary files and whatever’s been sitting in your Recycle Bin. To turn it on, go to Start > Settings > System > Storage and toggle on Storage Sense

$207 million

Sale price for the infamous Napster. Yep, the same one that let people pirate music before getting shut down. Its new owner wants to turn it into a virtual 3D space where fans can attend concerts and listen to music together. I’m glad I don’t have my money wrapped up in this!

🚀 The Fram2 mission: I’m sure you’ll see news about this on March 31. Astronauts are going to orbit both the North and South Poles for the first time ever. The crew will fly in a SpaceX Dragon capsule and spend up to five days in space. Oh, and they’ll be taking the first-ever X-ray of a human body off-planet. 

🗑️ Trash your big files: Running out of space on Google Drive? On the web, click Storage on the left to see your files from largest to smallest. On the Google Drive app, go to Files and tap on Name under My Drive near the top left. Then tap Storage used to sort it by file size. Delete what you don’t need. Ah, space.

China preparing for a space war: This is sci-fi for real. China’s testing satellites that perform tricky, close-range maneuvers, like dogfighting between fighter jets. China says they’re for “space environment monitoring,” but uhm, one model apparently has a robotic arm (paywall link). It could be used to attack other satellites! 

Space advertising: Imagine stepping outside to look at the stars … and seeing a giant glowing billboard in the sky. That could soon be a reality, with Russian companies planning to launch swarms of laser-equipped satellites to project light into Earth’s low orbit. The kicker? There’s no global ban on this yet. 

🍕 Serving up files: Try File.pizza to send large files from your computer without using up your cloud’s storage space. Just drag and drop it into your browser, set a password if you’d like (yes) and hit Start. You’ll get a link and a QR code to share. Keep the site open until whoever you send it to downloads it. Once you click out, the file is gone.