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Need something new for your reading list? This week, we recommend A.D. Sui's The Iron Garden Sutra, a meditative horror sci-fi/fantasy and murder mystery.

I don't typically gravitate toward locked room mysteries, but the description of this book ticked all the right boxes to win me over: "a death monk and a team of researchers trapped onboard a spaceship of the dead encounter something beyond human understanding." It has all the makings of a compelling murder mystery, which is fine on its own, but thanks to the philosophical musings of its main character, Vessel Iris, and a setting that almost demands existential contemplation, it becomes something much deeper.

Vessel Iris is a monk some time in the far future whose mission is to perform funeral rites for the dead so their souls may reach their ultimate destination, according to the beliefs of his religion, the Starlit Order. "Vessels" like Iris share their mind with an AI companion, which creates a really interesting dynamic for the reader, as there is a constant dialogue going on between the two from the start (carrying a tone that sometimes verges on "old married couple," which I quite enjoyed). Iris shows up to an ancient ship called the Counsel of Nicaea expecting to perform his duties for the long-deceased on board and instead finds himself facing a group of researchers who are very much not dead — and a jumbled mess of bones from the hundreds of bodies they disturbed by moving, which he'll have to sort in order to properly bless. 

Despite being a ghost ship in most respects, it turns out the Nicaea is alive with vegetation and gardens that would have once supported the humans that lived there. And, there's seemingly something else, as Iris' AI begins to pick up strange pings from a presence on the ship, and one by one the team of researchers starts getting picked off. As everything unravels, Iris begins to question his faith and his purpose.

This was such a great read, and I was excited to learn it's the first in a two-book series, The Cosmic Wheel series. Fans of horror sci-fi/sci-fantasy should definitely check this one out. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/what-to-read-this-weekend-locked-in-with-the-iron-garden-sutra-172342019.html?src=rss

Meta could be preparing for one of the largest layoffs in its history, according to a Reuters report. The tech giant is planning to cut about 20 percent of its workforce, according to the outlet's sources. According to the report, neither a date nor the exact number of layoffs has been finalized yet.

However, Reuters reported that Meta's top executives have told "other senior leaders" to start "planning how to pare back." In its latest financial report, the company's employee headcount was 78,865 as of December 31, 2025, while revenue reached nearly $60 billion for the fourth quarter and more than $200 billion for the entire year. A Meta spokesperson told Reuters that this was "speculative reporting about theoretical approaches."

Meta is no stranger to major layoffs. Earlier this year, Meta targeted about 1,000 employees in its layoffs with the Reality Labs division that's responsible for the company's virtual reality and metaverse efforts. Early last year, Meta laid off about five percent of its workforce, following a smaller round of firings that same month. Meanwhile, the company has been spending heavily to acquire AI startups, like Moltbook, a social network designed for AI agents, and Manus, a startup focused on AI agents for task automation.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/meta-is-reportedly-planning-to-cut-up-to-20-percent-of-its-staff-in-upcoming-layoffs-160812304.html?src=rss

Digg has shut down, for now, just a few months after its open beta launched. Justin Mezzell, the company’s CEO, has explained on the home page that it noticed hours after the beta launched that it was already being targeted by SEO spammers. “The internet is now populated, in meaningful part, by sophisticated AI agents and automated accounts,” he wrote. Apparently, the Digg team wasn’t ready for the scale and the speed at which bots found and started flooding the website.

Mezzell said Digg banned thousands of accounts and deployed both internal tools and external solutions, but they weren’t enough. He admitted that the votes and the comments on the website couldn’t be trusted due to the amount of bot activity it got. While Digg has decided to significantly downsize its team, a small number of staff members has stayed to rebuild it completely. He said it wasn’t enough to present Digg as an alternative to current social networks and community-based websites. “What comes next needs to be genuinely different,” he added.

The CEO didn’t explain how Digg will reinvent itself, but he did announce that its founder, Kevin Rose, is joining the company full time. Rose bought back Digg last year in partnership with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Back then, they said they had “a fresh vision to restore the spirit of discovery and genuine community that made the early web a fun and exciting place to be.” Based on what happened to Digg, that’s now harder to achieve with the state of the internet today.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/digg-shuts-down-for-a-hard-reset-because-it-was-flooded-with-bots-153848094.html?src=rss

Welcome to our latest roundup of what's going on in the indie game space. A bunch of intriguing games arrived this week, including a mobile port of one of the most absorbing things I’ve played in years and two completely different titles with the same name. Let’s get things started with a look at a few projects that were featured in the latest edition of the Future Games Show.

Hyperwired (from SidralGames and publisher SelectaPlay) is a 2D roguelike shooter with an interesting resource-management twist. To recharge your weapons and systems, you have to plug a cable that trails behind your spaceship into a socket. While you're plugged in, your movement is restricted by the length of the tether, but you gain more firepower. 

There are a whole bunch of upgrades and bullet modifiers to play around with here, including a slow-motion system you can activate at almost any time. Hyperwired is slated to hit Steam, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch this summer.

In Clean Up Earth, you and other players can work together to restore polluted environments. You can play solo if you like, but on the larger maps you'll need to team up with others to handle large bits of junk. One particularly neat aspect of Clean Up Earth is that in-game actions will automatically trigger micro-donations from developer Magic Pockets and its partners to environmental organizations.

Clean Up Earth is coming to Steam, Epic Games Store, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on April 2. A Nintendo Switch 2 version is on the way in the future. There's a demo available on Steam as well. 

Mr. Magpie’s Harmless Card Game is a minesweeper-style riff on the likes of Inscryption and Buckshot Roulette. As with some other roguelike deckbuilders, you're trapped in a creepy situation and the only way to escape alive is to gamble and earn enough money in time to meet quotas. To do that, you'll need to twist the odds in your favor by building multipliers and synergies. You can boost your deck with powerful cards you can buy from a shop.

However, there are dangerous JERRY cards on the board that could spell doom if you flip them over. You can use hints and strategies to try to figure out where those cards are and avoid them. 

There's no release date as yet for Mr. Magpie’s Harmless Card Game, which is from Giant Light Studios. However, you can request access to a playtest on Steam.

A press release described Herdles as "Spyro meets Breath of the Wild, with a dog." I'm immediately sold.

Playing as a magical version of creative director Christian Hübel’s own dog, Snoopy, you'll "restore balance to a fracturing world" in this open-world platformer. On your journey, you'll rescue Herdles, or corrupted creatures. Doing so will unlock new powers, such as being able to glide, bust through walls and swim up waterfalls.

There's no combat or death in this game, which seems to be largely about solving puzzles, experimenting with physics-based abilities and exploring. It's said to have "deep accessibility and customization options" too. Fire Sword Studios and One More Journey are behind Herdles, which does not have a release window, though the Steam page is live.

New releases

I took an earlier-than-usual lunch break on Thursday to check out the mobile version of Ball x Pit (from Kenny Sun and friends and publisher Devolver Digital) as soon as it was released. I adore this game. I'm happy it runs smoothly on my iPhone 16, because that should give me more reason to avoid doomscrolling. 

It's the same Ball x Pit. It's still fantastic. The touchscreen dual-stick controls work well enough, especially when the auto-fire option is enabled. Still, a mobile controller like OhSnap's MCON or the Backbone Pro works better for me. 

A bunch more people will be able to enjoy Ball x Pit now that it's on iOS and Android. You can play the first level for free and it costs $10 to unlock the full game.

It's a pretty good week for folks who are into brick-breaking roguelites, because here's another one. ITER-8 (from fluckyMachine and publisher Fireshine Games) blends mining and tower defense. It's a bit like Dome Keeper. 

You're tasked with acquiring resources from an enormous monolith that's above your base. You'll need to drag these items back to your base so you can upgrade your character, ship, shield and weapon. There are relics to find and you can swap these for installations like lasers, barriers and cannons. There are also puzzle-based sections that sees your character leave their ship for some in-person mining and upgrade collecting, temporarily switching from 2D to 3D action.

After a while, the monolith starts to thrum with an ominous sound. That means it's time to race back to base (with the help of a fast-travel system) to fend off waves of alien enemies.

The two sides of ITER-8 work fairly well together and I've enjoyed my time with it so far. I actually find it pretty relaxing overall, though the tower-defense aspect could have been designed a bit more elegantly. Switching aim from one side of the base to the other doesn’t feel snappy enough. ITER-8 is available on Steam for $13. There's a 25 percent launch discount available until March 23.

Piece by Piece is billed as a cozy repair shop game from Gamkat and publisher No More Robots. It looks cute!

You can decorate your shop and make it homely by cleaning, keeping the log fire burning and making sure the cookie jar is full. Of course, you'll be fixing up heirlooms and antiques for customers too. It's out now on Steam for $12, with a 20 percent discount until March 25.

Piece by Piece is a puzzle platformer in the most literal sense. You manipulate levels by moving puzzle pieces around. It's a great idea from Neon Polygons and I'm keen to check this one out on Steam. It typically costs $13, but there's a 15 percent discount until March 27.

Wait a second here... Two games called Piece by Piece that were released in the same week? That's a heck of a coincidence. Thankfully, the teams behind both games saw the funny side. They've even created a bundle of both games so you can buy them both for an extra 10 percent off.

Here's another puzzle-forward game, albeit one that's more of an adventure. In Rhell: Warped Worlds & Troubled Times, you'll discover and combine spells in creative ways to solve riddles in similar fashion to games like Baba Is You. There are said to be more than a million ways to combine the magical keywords. Since every spell works on any object in the game, there are more than 102 million possible configurations. Neat!

Solo developer Alice Jarratt from SlugGlove spent three years making Rhell: Warped Worlds & Troubled Times and drew more than 10,000 frames of animation for it. The game is available on Steam for $15, with a 20 percent launch discount until March 26. A demo is available too. 

Upcoming 

I've had Hoa on my wishlist for forever, so it's probably time for me to check out that puzzle platformer before the sequel arrives later this year. Hoa 2 (from Skrollcat Studio and publisher PM Studios) sticks with the hand-painted art of the original game but it’s a 3D game this time. 

It begins a long, long time after the end of Hoa, with the eponymous fairy returning to a world that's been transformed by time. But many of her old friends have passed away, so Hoa seeks a new purpose. 

Along with platforming and spatial puzzles, Hoa 2 features secrets and mini-games. It's coming to Steam, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch 2. 

I dig what I've seen of MotorSlice, which seems to have Mirror's Edge-style parkour action but in a much grittier-looking world. The developers also took inspiration from the Prince of Persia series and Shadow of the Colossus here — perhaps not too surprising in the latter case given that you'll be scaling huge bosses. This action adventure sees you on a mission to destroy every piece of machinery inside a ruined megastructure.

MotorSlice is coming to Steam this spring. A demo for this game from Regular Studio and publisher Top Hat Studios is available now. 

Being a lifelong soccer fan is a curse that's punctuated with infrequent moments of the most intense joy you'll ever feel. Plus, every few years, I lose about a month of my life to the most recent version of Football Manager (I gave up on the last one after winning every possible trophy with Borussia Mönchengladbach for three seasons in a row). So, it's safe to say that a game focused on perhaps the least glamourous job in soccer is up my alley.

Kitman — a job you might know of as "equipment manager" — is a sports management game with co-op for up to four people in which you take care of things behind the scenes of a soccer team. You'll clean locker rooms, polish boots, make sure players have the right uniforms and so on, while taking care of details on the fly on match days. 

There's a fun twist here in that you can secretly take on some of the manager's duties, such as scouting players and adjusting formations. Maybe that explains what's been happening with Tottenham Hotspur lately.

Kitman, from Outlier, is coming to Steam later this year. In the meantime, you can sign up to take part in a playtest.

If, like me, you adore Astro Bot, here's something to keep an eye on. Astrolander is a 2.5D platformer with lovely-looking 3D environments. As a robot named Feedback, you set out on a journey with a rocket-powered sidekick named Haptic (heh) to save bots known as the Most Valuable Programs, or MVPs. A second player can join in and help take control of Feedback.

Astrolander is from 16-year-old Max Trest of Lost Cartridge Creations. The PlayStation team (including its then-head of indie games Shuhei Yoshida) tried Astrolander at an event a few years back and offered Trest the chance to bring his game to PS5. Astrolander is also coming to Steam. It's set to arrive later this year.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ball-x-pit-on-mobile-piece-by-piece-x2-and-other-new-indie-games-worth-checking-out-110000319.html?src=rss

OpenAI plans to add its Sora video generation model directly into ChatGPT, The Information reports . The standalone Sora app was seen as a smash hit when it launched alongside Sora 2 in September 2025, but interest in the video generation app has fallen in the time since as users ran into limits on the amount and kinds of videos they could create.

Adding Sora to the ChatGPT could give the model a second life, and ideally grow the ChatGPT app's weekly active users from the 900 million OpenAI reported in February, to a billion or more. According to The Information, the standalone Sora app will stick around after the model is integrated, even though the app has fallen out of the App Store's top 100 free apps and only a small number of users reportedly share their videos publicly in the app.

It’s hard to pin down an exact number for what generating a video costs OpenAI, but the company charges API customers $0.10 per second for a 720p video, and in 2025, it was willing to give away 30 free video generations per account per a day in the Sora app. When you consider the even larger audience that could use the model in the ChatGPT app, things could get expensive fast. That could be one reason The Information reports OpenAI has projected it could spend over $225 billion on inference — the cost of running the company's models — between 2026 and 2030.

The company has attempted to monetize the Sora app by having users pay for credits to generate new videos, and could deploy something similar once the model comes to ChatGPT. Maybe giving customers the ability to generate videos with Disney characters could even get people to pay for more videos once they run out of free generations. Whether or not adding Sora to ChatGPT moves the needle for OpenAI, though, the company will likely be spending even more money than it was before.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/openai-reportedly-plans-to-add-sora-video-generation-to-chatgpt-222611439.html?src=rss

Meta AI should soon be better at surfacing international news content thanks to a set of new deals with publishers. The company announced new agreements with international outlets and offered additional details on its recent deal with News Corp. 

The latest deals bring French newspaper Le Figaro, Spanish media company Prisa and German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung into the fold. Together, along with News Corp, which runs a number of outlets in the UK, these sources should give Meta AI better access to timely info about world events. Meta didn't disclose terms of the deals — The Wall Street Journal previously reported the News Corp arrangement was worth up to $50 million a year — but it said that it intends to link out to the relevant news sources.

"These integrations will also facilitate easier access to information by linking out to articles, allowing you to visit these partners’ websites for more details while providing value to partners, enabling them to reach new audiences," Meta wrote in an update. The company has a long and sometimes fraught history with publishers as its priorities have shifted over the years. In the past, Meta has struck deals to pay publishers to produce live video and "instant articles" only to change course as news content has become less of a priority for Facebook.

Now, with Meta struggling to compete with its AI rivals, it seems the social media company is once again interested in news content. As the company notes in its blog post, Meta AI isn't always great at surfacing accurate and timely info. I noted this in 2024 when the company's assistant was repeatedly unable to accurately answer seemingly simple questions like " who is the Speaker of the House of Representatives." 

By striking a bunch of deals with publishers, the company should be better equipped to handle these kinds of queries (and hopefully more complex ones). How much benefit publishers will see from these arrangements, however, is an open question. While Meta says it will link out to the relevant news sources, there are lots of outside data points that raise serious questions about the effect AI search tools are having on web traffic.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-is-bringing-more-international-news-to-its-ai-213323713.html?src=rss

Adobe has agreed to pay the US government $75 million to settle its lawsuit over the company's allegedly harmful approach to subscriptions. The suit started in 2024, when the US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission filed a joint complaint alleging the company deliberately made it difficult to cancel subscriptions and obscured the frequently expensive "early termination fee" customers have to pay to get out of annual subscriptions that are paid monthly.

"While we disagree with the government’s claims and deny any wrongdoing, we are pleased to resolve this matter," Adobe writes. "We have agreed to provide $75 million worth of free services to customers that qualify. We will proactively reach out to the affected customers once the appropriate filings with the Court are made and accepted. Additionally, we have agreed to a $75 million payment to the Department of Justice."

Adobe's statement also notes that it's made the process of both signing up for and canceling subscriptions "more streamlined and transparent." A major sticking point of the original complaint is that canceling an "annual plan, paid monthly" subscription before completing the first year of service required customers to pay an early termination fee to make up for the value Adobe lost initially offering its software at a discount. Adobe currently allows plans to be refunded if they're canceled within 14 days after signing up, but canceling an "annual plan, paid monthly" subscription after those first 14 days requires paying a hefty fee (as outlined in the company's detailed support page).

A court will have to approve Adobe's proposed settlement before the lawsuit can be totally resolved, but the timing is at least a little ironic. Shantanu Narayen, Adobe's CEO for the last 18 years and the executive who oversaw the company's transition from traditional software business to software-as-a-service business, recently announced plans to retire. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/adobe-agrees-to-pay-settlement-for-making-its-subscriptions-hard-to-cancel-210336635.html?src=rss

In the mad dash many companies have made to incorporate AI features into their phones, Nothing arrived at one of the better ideas with Essential Space on the Nothing Phone 3a in 2025. The AI-powered app turns screenshots and voice recordings into actionable to-do lists and transcriptions, and now Nothing is rolling out an update to make the app easier to search and capable of recognizing new kinds of content.

As part of the update, Essential Space now recognizes "Events," displaying them in their own card with fields for the date, time and location. That means, for example, if you add a photo of a flyer for pottery class to the app, Essential Space will be able to pull the details of when and where it's happening, and track it in much the same way it does tasks or to-dos. Nothing foresees events being such a big part of how people will use Essential Space that it's also changing the layout of the app's interface and listing things like Events and Tasks in a new For You page you see when you open the app.

To make everything you've stored in Essential Space easier to find, the app now also supports semantic search, surfacing results that don't just match the text you've entered, but try to match the meaning of what you're looking for. Semantic search should be particularly useful when you're looking for an image, because you can enter a description of what you're looking for and Essential Space should still be able to surface it.

Sorting and indexing digital ephemera like voice notes and screenshots with AI is a popular use for the technology. Google offers Pixel Screenshots, and even Apple gave iOS and iPadOS the ability to automatically recognize events in images and add them to your calendar. Essential Space might be less unique now, but the fact that Nothing continues to update it bodes well for its future.

Nothing's new Essential Space update is available starting today on "all 2025–2026 Nothing and CMF phones that support Essential Key," the company says. Essential Space should automatically update, but you also manually update the app in the Google Play Store.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/nothing-updates-its-ai-app-with-semantic-search-and-a-new-way-to-track-events-202500495.html?src=rss

Apple's cheapest laptop is also its most repairable. iFixit gave the new MacBook Neo a 6/10 repairability score. Although that number would only be mediocre for, say, a game review or final exam grade, it's the MacBook line's highest iFixit score in about 14 years.

As always, iFixit goes into great detail about the product's repairability, but a few points stand out. First, the MacBook Neo's battery is screwed down rather than glued — moving it from "this might burn the house down" to "routine repair" territory. The laptop also has a flat disassembly tree. That means its battery, speakers, ports and trackpad are all immediately accessible after opening the back case.

In other areas, a simplified antenna assembly helps the screen come away cleanly. Keyboard repair is still a bit tedious (41 screws and tape), but at least it isn't riveted to the top case like on other models. (The screwed-not-glued battery helps here, too.) Apple's decision to forego a Force Touch trackpad and return to a mechanical style improves repairability as well. And in a nice touch, all the machine's Torx Plus screw sizes are clearly labeled inside the case.

Apple

Several other encouraging signs carry over from recent MacBooks. iFixit found that Apple's Repair Assistant accepted all replacement parts it tried without a fuss. And its USB-C ports and headphone jack are modular, so replacing either doesn't "turn into logic board work."

Not everything is peachy. As expected, the Neo still has soldered RAM and storage, so there's no upgrade path there. iFixit describes Apple's pentalobe screws on the bottom case as an "annoying" choice. And while the device's speakers are easy to remove, they, well, just aren't very good. (Had to cut that cost somewhere.)

While iFixit describes the Neo's repairability as "a real comeback," it's premature to assume higher-end MacBooks will follow suit. After all, with this $599 device ($499 for schools), Apple is targeting the educational sector, where repairability could mean more bulk orders. Until Apple is convinced that the MacBook Air or Pro would sell better with similar serviceability, this kind of score may be limited to the budget model.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/the-macbook-neo-is-apples-most-repairable-laptop-200923202.html?src=rss

Meta is killing end-to-end encryption in Instagram DMs. The feature will "no longer be supported after May 8, 2026," the company wrote in an update on its support page. Unlike WhatsApp, Meta never made encryption available to all Instagram users and it was never a default setting. Instead, users in "some areas" had the ability to opt-in to encryption on a per-chat basis.

In a statement, a Meta spokesperson said the feature was being retired due to low adoption. "Very few people were opting in to end-to-end encrypted messaging in DMs, so we're removing this option from Instagram in the coming months," the spokesperson said. "Anyone who wants to keep messaging with end-to-end encryption can easily do that on WhatsApp.”

Interestingly, Meta's statement doesn't mention the status of encryption on Messenger. The company began turning on end-to-end encryption as a default setting in 2023 after years of work on the feature. A support page for Messenger currently states that the company "is in the process of securing personal messages with end-to-end encryption by default."

Meta's approach to encrypted messaging has changed several times over the years. It started encrypting WhatsApp chats in 2016. In 2019, Mark Zuckerberg outlined a "privacy-focused" revamp of the company's apps, saying at the time that "implementing end-to-end encryption for all private communications is the right thing to do." In 2021, the company's head of safety said that Meta was delaying its encryption work until 2023 in order to create stronger safety features.  

Meta’s use of encryption has been repeatedly criticized by law enforcement and some child safety organizations that say the feature makes it harder to catch predators who target children on social media. Recently, the topic has been raised numerous times during a trial in New Mexico over child safety. Internal documents that have surfaced as part of the trial show Meta executives and researchers debating the trade-offs between safety and privacy as it relates to encryption. 

In testimony that was broadcast during the trial, Zuckerberg said that safety issues were "a large part of the reason why it took so long" to bring encryption to Messenger. "There's been debate about this, but I think the majority of folks, from people who use our products to people who are involved in security overall, believe that strong encryption is positive," he said.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-is-killing-end-to-end-encryption-in-instagram-dms-195207421.html?src=rss

Amazon is raising the price of its ad-free Prime Video subscription and locking 4K UHD streaming behind this new tier. Starting April 10 for US customers, a rebranded Prime Video Ultra subscription will cost $5 per month, up from $3 per month.

For that extra $2, you get a download capacity increase from 25 to 100, and you can now run five streams concurrently instead of three. Whether those "Ultra" upgrades are worth the $24 annual hike will probably depend on how many boxsets you like to plough through on a long flight, or how many devices are using your Prime Video account.

The changes are most galling for Prime members who automatically qualify for Prime Video with ads through their membership, as Amazon has decided to remove 4K streaming from the standard tier. That means that, despite already paying $15 per month or $139 per year for Amazon Prime, you’ll be stuck with 1080p shows and movies unless you sign up to Prime Video Ultra. 

Amazon has thrown in Dolby Vision support for the first time, as well as upping the concurrent stream and download count on its free tier as well, but you’re losing the privilege of UHD content that has been available to all Prime Video members for years. Dolby Atmos remains exclusive to the $5 tier too.

Amazon is the latest streamer to put its prices up, following similar recent hikes to Apple TV, Disney+ and HBO Max. If you don’t want to give the company any more of your hard-earned, you have just under a month to binge your way through the second season of Fallout in all of its irradiated UHD glory.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/youll-now-have-to-fork-out-for-an-additional-subscription-if-you-want-to-watch-4k-content-on-prime-video-174028064.html?src=rss

Parallels, the company best known for making the virtualization software that enables you to run Windows and other operating systems on a Mac, has confirmed that Parallels Desktop is compatible with the MacBook Neo.

At launch it was unclear if Apple's new $600 laptop possessed the under-the-hood heft to run Windows apps, but in a recently updated post on its website, Parallels said that initial tests show its software running "stably," although performance is still being assessed.

The MacBook Neo uses an A18 Pro chip, which debuted in the iPhone 16 Pro. However, as this chip is based on the same ARM architecture as M-series chips for Mac, it’s still capable of running Parallels’ Windows virtual machine.

But there is a caveat to all this. Just because you can do something, it doesn’t necessarily mean you should. While Parallels Desktop could theoretically be a viable option for Neo owners who are only interested in light Windows use, anything that puts a significant strain on the CPU or GPU is going to present a problem.

This is because the MacBook Neo only ships with 8GB of RAM, and as Parallels highlights, Windows 11 requires a minimum of 4GB of RAM to run. That leaves a very small amount of remaining headroom for macOS and your Mac apps to run alongside Windows, which is going to noticeably hurt the laptop’s performance. Add to that the lack of a cooling fan, meaning the chip will reduce clock speeds when it detects a heavy CPU or GPU load, and this definitely isn’t a device for power users.

If you really want to dabble with Windows on a Mac, Parallels recommends picking up an Apple laptop with 16GB of unified memory or more, like the new MacBook Air M5 or a MacBook Pro. And for those content with macOS and looking to save some money, we dubbed the MacBook Neo the best $600 laptop we’ve ever used in our recently published review.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/parallels-desktop-creators-say-macbook-neo-does-indeed-have-enough-muscle-to-run-windows-apps-164525546.html?src=rss

The newly verified X account for Iran's supreme leader could be putting the company on the wrong side of US sanctions, according to a watchdog group. The Tech Transparency Project, which last month published a report on X granting premium perks to sanctioned officials in Iran, now says that the verified account for the country's new leader raises fresh questions about the issue. 

The TTP notes that the X account for Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, appears to be paying for an X premium subscription despite being on the US government's list of sanctioned individuals since 2019. As the group points out, the Iran-based account was created this month and currently bears a blue checkmark, which typically indicates the account holder is paying for a subscription. 

Last month, TTP found that X was providing premium subscriptions to Iranian officials sanctioned by @USTreasury, a transaction that may violate sanctions.

It didn't end there.

An account for Iran's new supreme leader created this month also carries the blue premium checkmark.🧵 pic.twitter.com/5K9Ss1Sex8

— Tech Transparency Project (@TTP_updates) March 12, 2026

The account belonging to Mojtaba Khamenei has been boosted by other state-linked accounts in Iran, including the one that previously belonged to Khamenei's father. That account has had a gray checkmark, which indicates it belongs to a verified government official. Verified accounts on X are rewarded with extra visibility on the platform, along with other perks. The younger Khamenei's verified account has already gained more than 20,000 new followers in the hours since TTP first posted about it. 

"The new Supreme Leader's account is just the latest account for a sanctioned entity apparently paying X for premium services," TTP director Katie Paul said in a statement to Engadget. "TTP has identified dozens of accounts, many linked to designated terrorists, that subscribed to X premium over the past three years. What's more concerning than the blatant disregard for U.S. sanctions law is the fact that Musk's companies have a contract with the Pentagon while X is actively profiting from U.S. adversaries."

As Paul notes, this isn't the first time TTP has raised questions about whether X is running afoul of US sanctions via its premium service. In 2024, the group published a report noting that X was accepting paid verification from more than two dozen sanctioned individuals and groups. The company said at the time that it had a "a robust and secure approach in place for our monetization features." 

X didn't respond to a request for comment. But in the hours after Engadget reached out about Khamenei’s account, the blue checkmark was removed. The company also removed blue checks from a handful of Iran-based accounts flagged by TTP last month following reporting from Wired.

Update, March 13, 2026, 9:08AM PT: This story was updated to reflect changes made to Khamenei’s account following publication.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/x-could-be-breaching-us-sanctions-on-iran-watchdog-warns-213550284.html?src=rss

TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance has figured out a way to access NVIDIA's latest AI chips despite export restrictions, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. The company is working with a firm called Aolani Cloud and building out Blackwell computing systems in Malaysia.

This should give ByteDance access to around 36,000 B200 chips. That's NVIDIA's most powerful processor. The hardware buildout will reportedly cost more than $2.5 billion. The company says it plans on using this new computing power for AI research and development outside of China.

The country has been unable to access the B200 chip, as it was designed in California and, as such, subject to US export controls. This has led some Chinese companies to do what ByteDance is doing with Aolani Cloud. The Singapore-based firm will buy up the components from NVIDIA and will operate exclusively in Malaysia, giving ByteDance access in the process.

"By design, the export rules allow clouds to be built and operated ​outside controlled ​countries," an NVIDIA spokesperson said. They also said that all of the company's cloud partners go through review before being approved to receive its products.

A representative from Aolani Cloud told Reuters ‌that the company adheres to all applicable export control regulations and that ByteDance will be just one of many customers. It plans on providing cloud-computing services to multiple companies across Asia and the globe. However, it's worth noting that Aolani currently operates ‌with just $100 million worth ⁠of hardware and ByteDance is planning to inject a whopping $2.5 billion.

Nvidia still hasn’t sold a single H200 to China nearly three months after getting the green light from the White House — U.S. Commerce official says department hasn’t approved any sales during a House hearing https://t.co/He1LeEz0uI

— Tom's Hardware (@tomshardware) February 25, 2026

The US did recently allow ByteDance to buy NVIDIA's H200 chips, but they've been slapped with a 25 percent tariff. Additionally, the US government mandated that the export license would only be approved if NVIDIA accepted a Know-Your-Customer requirement, which is an attempt to ensure that China's military can't access the chips. NVIDIA has yet to agree to these terms.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/bytedance-will-reportedly-buy-nvidias-latest-ai-chips-to-use-outside-of-china-155553019.html?src=rss

Inevitably, the more you use something — your Mac included — the more dirty and cluttered it’s likely to become. At that point, you can buy a new machine, but the more economical move is to make what you have already work better. To help your computer feel new, or at least a little cleaner and less chaotic, we put together this guide with techniques and useful apps that have helped us maintain a more organized computer. I’ve been using these tips since before I first published this guide in 2021, and they’ve helped keep my 2018 MacBook Air looking and running (almost) like brand new.

How to clean your Mac’s screen and body

While there are many products out there from manufacturers claiming their one does it best, my advice is to keep things simple. It’s also the one Apple recommends. To start, you will need some water in a spray bottle and a clean microfiber cloth. You can use regular water from the tap but I've found distilled water works best; it’s far less likely to leave residue behind on your Mac, particularly on the display. You can buy distilled water at a grocery store or make it yourself with some simple cookware. Either way, it’s more affordable than dedicated cleaning solutions. If you don’t already own any microfiber towels, Amazon sells affordable 24-packs you can get for about $10.

One other product I would recommend is a Giottos Rocket Blower. I can’t say enough good things about this little tool. It will save you from buying expensive and wasteful cans of compressed air.

As for the actual process of cleaning your Mac, remember to start with a clean cloth (that’s part of the reason we recommend buying them in bulk). You’ll save yourself time and frustration this way. Begin by turning off your computer and unplugging it. If you bought a Rocket Blower, use it now to remove any dust. If not, take a dry microfiber cloth and go over your computer. Take special care around the keys, particularly if you own an older Mac with a butterfly keyboard.

Next, dampen one side of your cleaning cloth with water. Never spray any liquid directly on your computer. You’ll have more control this way and you’ll avoid getting any moisture into your Mac’s internals. I always clean the display first since the last thing I want to do is create more work for myself by transferring dirt from some other part of my computer to the screen.

The last step is to buff and polish your computer with the dry side of the cloth. Be gentle here as you don’t want to scratch the screen or any other part of. That’s it. Your Mac should be looking clean again.

How to organize your hard drive Igor Bonifacic / Engadget

One of the trickiest parts of cleaning your Mac’s hard drive is knowing where to start; most of us have apps on our computers we don’t even remember installing in the first place. Thankfully, macOS comes with a tool to help you with that exact issue.

Navigate to System Settings > General > Storage. Here you’ll find a tool that separates your storage into broad categories like "Applications," "Documents," "Music," "Photos" and so on. Either double-click on an item in the list or click the circled i icon to see the last time you used an app and how much space it’s taking up. You can delete the apps from the same window.

The applications section is particularly helpful since you can see the last time you used a program, as well as if it’s no longer supported by the operating system or if it’s outdated thanks to a more recent release.

You don’t need me to tell you to uninstall programs you don’t use, but what you might not know is that there’s a better way to erase them than simply dragging them to the trash can. A free program called AppCleaner will help you track down any files and folders that would get left behind if you were just to delete an application.

Igor Bonifacic / Engadget

After deleting any apps you don’t need, move to the Documents section. The name is somewhat misleading here since you’ll find more than just text files and Keynote spreadsheets. In this case, documents turns out to be the tool’s catch-all term for a variety of files, including ones that take up a large amount of space. You can also safely delete any DMGs (disc image files with the extension .dmg) for which you’ve installed the related app.

The other sections in the storage space are self-explanatory. The only other thing I’ll mention is if you’ve been using an iPhone for a while, there’s a good chance you’ll have old iOS backups stored on your computer. You can safely delete those, too.

Tips and tricks for keeping a neat Desktop and Finder Igor Bonifacic

Let’s start with the menu bar. It may not technically be part of the desktop, but a tidy one can go a long way toward making everything else look less cluttered. My recommendation here is to download an app called Bartender. At first glance, it’s a simple program allowing you to hide unwanted menu bar items behind a three-dots icon, but the strength of Bartender is that you get a lot of customization options. For example, you can set a trigger that will automatically move the battery status icon out from hiding when your computer isn’t connected to a power outlet.

While we’re on the subject of the menu bar, take a second to navigate to System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions and look at all the apps that launch when you boot up your system. You can speed up your system by paring down this list to only the programs you use frequently.

When it comes to the desktop itself, less is more. Nothing will make your computer look like a cluttered mess more than a busy desktop. Folders and stacks can help, but for most people, I suspect part of the problem is they use their desktop as a way to quickly and easily find files that are important to them.

If you’ve ever struggled to find a specific file or folder on your computer, try using your Mac’s tagging capabilities instead. Start by opening the Finder Settings menu (Command + ,) and click the Tags tab. You can use the default ones provided by macOS or make your own. Drag the ones you think you’ll use most often to the favorites areas at the bottom of the preferences window. This will make it so that they’re easily accessible when you want to use them. To append a tag to a file or folder, click on it while holding the ctrl key and select the one you want from the dropdown menu. You can also tag a file while working on it within an app. Keep in mind you can apply multiple tags to a single file or folder, and you can even apply them to applications.

Igor Bonifacic / Engadget

What makes tags so useful in macOS is that they can appear in the sidebar of the Finder window, and are easily searchable either directly with Finder or using Siri. As long as you have a system for organizing your files, even a simple one, you’ll find it easier to keep track of them. As one example, I like to apply an Engadget tag to any files related to my work. I’ll add an “Important” tag if it’s something that’s critical and I want to find quickly.

One tool that can help supercharge your Finder experience is Alfred. It’s effectively a more powerful version of Apple’s Spotlight feature. Among other things, you can use Alfred to find and launch apps quickly. There’s a bit of a learning curve, but once you get a hang of it, Alfred will change how you use your Mac for the better.

How to organize your windows and tabs Igor Bonifacic / Engadget

If you’ve used both macOS and Windows 10, you’ll know that Apple’s operating system doesn’t come with the best window management tools. You can click and hold on the green full-screen button to tile a window to either the left or right side of your screen, but that’s about it and the feature has always felt less precise than its Windows counterpart.

My suggestion is to download an app that replicates Windows 10’s snapping feature. You have several competing options that more or less offer the same functionality. My go-to is a $5 program called Magnet. If you want a free alternative, check out Rectangle. Another option is BetterSnapTool, which offers more functionality than Magnet but doesn’t have as clean of an interface. All three apps give you far more ways to configure your windows than what you get through the built-in tool in macOS. They also come with shortcut support, which means you can quickly set up your windows and get to work.

Check out more from our spring cleaning guide.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/how-to-clean-your-mac-macbook-cleaning-supplies-digital-organization-153007592.html?src=rss

It's already smartphone season. Samsung's annual deluge encompasses three new phones for 2026: the frontier-pushing S26 Ultra ($1,300) with its innovative Privacy Screen, the S26 ($899) and the S26+ ($999). The smaller flagships, yet again, are iterative versions of what came before, with the major differences centering on bigger batteries and brighter screens.

I'm getting waves of deja vu as I review the Galaxy S26, because at times I was writing exactly what I wrote last year — including the part about it being a little too similar to what came before.

Hardware Image by Mat Smith for Engadget

Let's focus on the changes. The Galaxy S26's screen size is a little bigger than its predecessor's; 6.3 inches, up from 6.2 inches on the S25. However, it still has the same FHD+ (2,340 x 1,080) resolution. Given the slight size difference, there's no particular drop in sharpness. The screen can also go slightly brighter, topping out at 3,000 nits, which is always welcome — especially when Samsung has increased the battery to 4,300mAh from the S25's 4,000mAh. (The S25 already impressed us with its battery longevity.)

The design, however, is largely unchanged. The camera trio now sits on a unified circular island and, well, that's all I really have to say. Once again, it's premium Samsung hardware, but otherwise I'd just be reiterating what I said last year… and our review from the year before that.

Inside, Samsung increased the base RAM to 12GB and the storage to 256GB on the S26, doubling the space found on the S25. With the S26's processor, Samsung split the device into two different builds depending on region. In the US, you'll get the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, like the S26 Ultra. Elsewhere, including my review device in the UK, the S26 and (S26+) have the in-house Exynos 2600.

Samsung's Exynos 2600 SoC is its first 2nm chip and should offer power-efficiency improvements over larger alternatives. This year's S26 didn't struggle with any of the games I played or video-editing tasks. Samsung says its new chip delivers around 50 percent better performance across single- and multicore tasks. The Exynos 2600 includes a new Xclipse 960 GPU, which casubtlenuan deliver double the graphical performance of the Exynos 2500.

On Geekbench 6, the Exynos S26 scored 3151 on single-core tests and 10,664 on multicore tests (not far behind the Snapdragon-powered S26 Ultra). Similarly, the GPU score (24425) didn't lag far behind — all pleasant surprises. There is a but coming.

Comparing battery rundown tests between a Snapdragon S26 and my Exynos version revealed a gap. Watching a looped video at 50 percent brightness, the Exynos iteration lasted almost 28 hours, while the Snapdragon 8 Elite S26 lasted nearly 30 hours. Sure, that's great longevity regardless of which S26 model you get. But this year's flagship does have a bigger battery, so why is the Exynos-powered version only matching last year's phone?

Cameras Image by Mat Smith for Engadget

Not much has changed in the composition (or resolution) of the camera trio: there's a 50-megapixel main, a 12MP ultrawide and a 10MP telephoto. That means that any improvements in photos and video are subtle, to put it kindly.

It's hard to discern the improvements this year without really scrutinizing dark shots and zooming right in. The S26 does seem a little faster at capturing bursts and high-res video. And while I prefer the no-nonsense shooting of the Pixel 10a, the S26 offers a little more versatility with its zoom and ultrawide cameras. Cropped zoom, for example, lets you get closer to subjects beyond the 3X optical zoom, though more detail is lost than with the S26 Ultra and its larger resolution sensors.

Image by Mat Smith for Engadget

Once you've taken the shot, Samsung's bundle of AI tools can take over. Photo Assist attempts to corral all of these editing features into one place, offering quick ways to reduce reflections or edit out photobombers. You can now use natural language text prompts to guide your photo editing.

For example, I attempted to adjust the lighting more evenly on a photo of me taken outdoors with a flash. I could do it with my rudimentary photo-editing skills, but Samsung's tools are fast and, crucially, very easy to use. It's a feature where natural language interfaces really make sense.

With the front-facing camera, Samsung has added its Object Aware Engine, promising better, more accurate rendering of skin tones and hair, as well as an improved portrait mode. But again, I noticed marginal differences. The S26 seemed to have better color accuracy than its predecessor, resulting in slightly warmer selfies.

For videos, Samsung Super Steady mode is now more versatile, maintaining a consistent horizontal lock no matter how much you move around. As I mentioned during my hands-on, it's an interesting addition, the kind of feature you typically see on action cams and gimbals. It works well, too, although the footage does pick up a bit of focus-pumping as it fights to stabilize everything.

Rounding out the new additions is an Autoframing mode that crops in on your tracked subject as they move around. There's a degree of auto-detection for faces and pets, but you can tap to apply tracking to anything, to which it locks on well. It works particularly well with tripods, but there is a slight floating effect as the S26 tries to keep up with the phone's movement. I also noticed warping at the edge of the lens when the camera app kept my subject centered in the frame.

Software Image by Mat Smith for Engadget

Samsung's S26 launch event suggested this was the era of agentic AI, with assistants now positioned to connect the dots between tasks themselves. We're not quite there, though.

The company has slightly expanded many of the features introduced last year. Now Brief is capable of pulling data from more apps to generate more comprehensive daily summaries, but I mostly saw the usual suspects: weather, calendar reminders and not much else.

Across the S26, a new Now Nudge feature will suggest actions with an unobtrusive icon, based on what's happening on screen, such as sharing contact numbers with someone or suggesting calendar times while dealing with work emails.

Perplexity is an interesting addition. The S26 series is in a curious spot where it has hooks into no fewer than three AI assistants: Gemini, Bixby (bless its heart) and now Perplexity.

You do have to install the Perplexity app (and log in to use it), but you can then choose to make it your primary AI assistant. Odd things are missing: Samsung said Perplexity integration would work across the phone, including its own Browser app — something I was excited to test. Perplexity's own browser, Comet, has a slick feature that lets it browse and summarize multiple tabs. I was in the middle of deciding where to eat during my recent trip to Barcelona, so I thought this was a great use case. However, that feature isn't available in Samsung's browser for now. According to Perplexity, Samsung will "integrate Perplexity's APIs into the Samsung Browser, with agentic browser capabilities."

Voice commands of "Hey Plex" also went unanswered. I found I had to manually grant permissions to the Perplexity app for it to work like Google's Gemini. This could just be teething issues with a pre-release device and software, but Perplexity, for now, doesn't offer enough utility beyond what I was already used to with Gemini.

Wrap-up Image by Mat Smith for Engadget

The Galaxy S26 is a solid phone, with upgraded battery capacity and more base storage. Whether you get the Exynos or the Snapdragon S26, there's fortunately no performance gulf as has happened in the past. However, the shorter battery life is a disappointing discovery from Samsung's first 2nm chip.

For Samsung's smallest flagships over the last three years, it's all been very samey. Is the company now focused on its true flagship Ultra phone and foldables to generate buzz and make things exciting? That's what it feels like. There's nothing wrong with this safe, solid Android phone, but you could pick up last year's S25 and get an experience that's 99 percent the same for $99 less.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/samsung-galaxy-s26-review-the-smartphone-status-quo-143033391.html?src=rss

Somehow, Apple made a $599 laptop that's actually a joy to use. In this episode, Devindra and Deputy Editor Nathan Ingraham chat about what makes the MacBook Neo so great. And they also dive into the new M4 iPad Air, M5 MacBook Air and M5 Pro/Max MacBook Pros. Also, Roberto Baldwin, SAE International's Sustainability Editor, joins us to chat about the state of EVs today as gas prices explode.

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Topic

• MacBook Neo review: Apple puts $600 Windows PCs to shame – 1:47

• iPad Air M4 remains Apple’s best overall tablet – 18:05

• Whistleblower claims ex-DOGE employee illegally took social security info on 500 million Americans to their new job – 33:37

• Valve clarifies their outlook on the Steam Machine, it’ll launch in 2026, still no word on price – 36:08

• Grammerly hit with a class action lawsuit for using reporters’ names in an editing ‘expert’ tool – 40:29

• A new study claims every major AI chatbot will help users plan a hate attack or political assassination – 44:03

• What to look for in a used EV with SAE International sustainability editor Roberto Baldwin – 48:31

• Around Engadget – 1:21:04

Credits

Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Nathan Ingraham
Guest: Roberto Baldwin
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O’Brien

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/engadget-podcast-apples-599-macbook-neo-is-astounding-140402521.html?src=rss

Apple is lowering its developer fees in China following discussions with the Chinese regulator. From March 15, the commission rate for standard in-app purchases (IAPs) will be reduced from 30 percent to 25 percent on its mainland China App Store storefront for both iOS and iPadOS.

In a Developer blog, Apple also said that developers belonging to its App Store Small Business or Mini Apps programmes will also have their fees reduced by 3 percent, from 15 to 12 percent. This applies to the commission rate for IAPs and in-app subscription renewals after the first year.

"We strive for iOS and iPadOS to be the best app ecosystem and a great business opportunity for developers in China," Apple said in the post. "We are committed to terms that remain fair and transparent to all developers, and to always offering competitive App Store rates to developers distributing apps in China that are no higher than overall rates in other markets."

Apple says developers are not required to agree to the terms by March 15 to start receiving their benefits, seemingly making the transition as smooth as possible to avoid further regulatory intervention. It will no doubt be taken as a significant win for Chinese businesses, and comes a year after reports that a state watchdog was investigating the fees Apple enforces on developers it hosts on the App Store.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/apple-is-reducing-its-app-store-commission-fees-in-china-131221192.html?src=rss

Apple's new family of laptops might have a cringeworthy name, but don't let it fool you. Despite the MacBook Neo running on a built-for-iPhone A-series processor and being limited to 8GB of RAM, it delivers on what Macs do best. It has a capable screen, keyboardand trackpadand its overall build quality should embarrass other laptop-making rivals that have compromised on those areas with their $600 laptops.

Engadget

Don't expect a gaming rig – it struggled predictably to run Lies of P, but for most of the things you need a laptop for – especially for students and desk workers – it handles them with aplomb. Yeah, I said aplomb.

Check out our full Neo review by Devindra Hardawar – surely you're intrigued by the idea of a $600 MacBook?

— Mat Smith

The other big stories (and deals) this morning

• Bumble is the latest dating app to add an AI assistant

• Alexa+ can now swear

• I guess this wasn't an Xbox after all

• RAMaggedon is not expected to ease this year as IDC cuts 2026 PC market forecast again.

Rabbit teases its modern take on the netbook, built for vibe coders I don't have to like the Cyberdeck name. Rabbit

Project Cyberdeck is Rabbit's attempt to make a PC tailored for vibe coding. The company began working on Project Cyberdeck after its CEO, Jesse Lyu, saw how extensively his software engineers were using Claude Code. Unfortunately, existing cheap, lightweight machines had bad keyboards and other limitations. So Rabbit is making its ownand it's taking a big serving of inspiration from the tiny, almost pocket-sized laptops that VAIO made back in the late '00s and early 2010s.

Continue reading.

Microsoft's Project Helix consoles will head to game studios in 2027 Xbox wants a do-over.

In a bid to distract from corporate reshuffles, fears of generative AI game slop and a pretty poor showing against the PS5, Microsoft is getting ahead of its rival. At GDC 2026, the company said that it planned to get Project Helix dev consoles in the hands of game devs as soon as 2027.

Jason Ronald, vice-president of next generation for Xbox, reiterated that the new system would be capable of playing both Xbox console games and PC games. (Sony's decision to halt porting its games across to PC makes more sense. ) Ronald said it would incorporate a custom AMD-made system-on-a-chip, offering "a magnitude leap in ray tracing performance and capability".

Continue reading.

Meta bought another social network Filled with bots, but on purpose.

The owners of Facebook are buying Moltbook, the hyped Reddit-like social network for AI agents that has only been around since January. The company hasn't disclosed the terms of the deal, but Moltbook and its creators will be joining Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) when the deal closes. 

And that definitely doesn't sound like a cabal of comic book villains that fights the Justice League.

Continue reading.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-120553713.html?src=rss

Meditation is often touted as a mental cure-all, purported to help with stress, sleep, mood, focus and even certain medical conditions. I’ve been meditating most of my adult life. I’ve done silent retreats. I’ve been formally trained in various techniques. I’ve had someone in my contacts list who I referred to as a “guru.” So I feel I’m relatively qualified to give some bad news: Meditation won’t fix your life, despite what David Lynch says. However, there’s also some good news: Despite not actually being a cure-all for everything bad in the universe, meditation can certainly take the edge off.

This is where meditation apps can come into play. Of course, practicing mindfulness doesn’t require an app; people have been doing it for thousands of years, with nary a smartphone in sight. But mindfulness apps can be useful in a number of ways. They provide access to all kinds of guided meditations to suit different styles. Some even offer social connections, which can motivate you to keep up your practice via the magic of peer pressure. They are also particularly well-suited to beginners, with many of them offering a free trial. With all of this in mind, I downloaded some of the most popular meditation apps and set about sitting calmly on a comfortable chair to test them out. What follows is a comparison aimed at real people just looking to squeeze a bit more joy and relaxation out of daily life.

Best meditation apps

Other meditation gear we tested

Brain-tracking wearables have been around for years, but there are some newer devices that have been tailor-made for meditators. These gadgets track the brain during meditations and offer real-time feedback. It’s a real boon for the data-obsessed, but also a real bank account drainer, with some gadgets costing thousands of dollars. I took two of the more-popular options for a spin to see what they’d make of my brain.

Sens.ai Neurofeedback System

Sens.ai is a weird contraption that not only claims to track brainwaves, but gives real-time feedback to “teach” people how to meditate and enter a flow state. The device involves a giant headset that’s stuffed with brainwave sensors that detect beta, alpha, theta and gamma waves, in addition to heart-rate sensors. It also comes with a truly bizarre companion gadget that uses light stimulation (transcranial photobiomodulation) to keep an eye on focus and attention levels. The whole thing is combined with an app that keeps track of dozens of data metrics and allows access to various guided meditations.

I’m as surprised as you to say that this thing appears to work, with some caveats. It’s uncanny how well it monitors the brain during meditations. If I got lost in a thought spiral about lasagna at six minutes in, sure enough, there would be a dip in analytics at the six-minute mark. It’s also fairly easy to use, despite a process that involves wetting a number of electrodes. As magical as the accurate brain-tracking seems to be, however, I wasn’t as keen on the actual training portion, which often involves staring at a screen throughout the entirety of the practice. It’s also not for the financial faint of heart, as the Sens.ai device costs $1,500.

NeoRhythm Omnipemf

NeoRhythm’s Omnipemf is another wearable to help people get into that ever-elusive flow state. It doesn’t track your brain, but rather floods it with electromagnetic fields at specific frequencies to make it more susceptible to meditation and focus. This is supposed to prime your brain for the meditative state and, in theory, make it easier to capture that zen. However, I didn’t get much from it, other than a placebo-esque buzzing in my head.

To use it, you simply pop on the wearable and go about your day. You aren’t tied to an app, so you can meditate in whatever way you like. There are multiple modes that go beyond meditation, as this thing is supposed to help with focus, pain relief and sleep. I’d wait for some peer-reviewed studies, however, before buying this.

How we tested meditation apps

Every brain is different, so I did not rate these apps based on if they sync up with my preferred meditation style. First and foremost, I looked for apps that cater to various methods and those that offer guided meditations that go beyond what’s free on YouTube. All of the items on this list are available on both Android and iOS, so you won’t have to worry about something being only for iPhone owners.

Of course, there’s lots of free stuff out there, from podcasts and videos on YouTube to audio tracks on streaming services. You can even find guided breathing sessions on an Apple Watch or Fitbit, as well as meditations in Fitness+, Samsung Health or any number of workout video providers. For this guide, I focused on apps that stood out in some way. I liked apps with huge libraries of guided meditations and those that offer additional mindfulness activities, like yoga routines. I also looked for easy-to-use apps with well-designed layouts. You don’t want to start your meditation journey with a clunky app that actually increases anxiety.

The most important thing with meditation is to keep doing it, so I awarded points for clever gamification elements, simple social network integration and anything else that encourages repeat visits. Finally, I considered extra features that set an app apart from the glut of competitors out there. For example, some meditation apps offer novel ways to track your progress, access to yoga routines and a whole lot more.

At the end of the day, each of these apps has its strengths. But if installing an app or using a device is not how you prefer to meditate, you can always turn off your phone and find a quiet room or environment. For those of us who need a little help from a digital guru, though, here are our favorite apps for meditation.

Check out more from our spring cleaning guide.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/best-meditation-app-140047993.html?src=rss