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Lego’s new Smart Play system, announced at CES earlier this week, is an embrace of digital technology the likes of which we haven’t seen from the company before. And while the demonstration it gave on Monday was a good start towards showing just what Lego’s Smart Brick is capable of, there’s no substitute for seeing it in person. Fortunately, an extended demo answered a lot of my questions on how the system will work once kids and adults get their hands on the first round of sets with Smart Play.

As I detailed yesterday, the Smart Play system contains three elements. The Smart Brick is packed with technology like proximity sensors, an accelerometer, color sensors and a speaker, all powered by a tiny chip. It’s crucial to know that each Smart Brick is identical at this point; to really bring a set to life, you need to combine it with Smart Tags or Smart Minifigures. Both the Tags and Minifigures contain specific instructions that help the Brick understand the context that it is placed in.

The demo started out simply, with three small Lego builds: a car, a helicopter and a duck. Each of those builds had a unique Smart Tag that the Smart Brick uses to understand how it should respond to real-world stimulus. The car started making the sound of a revving engine, and when playing with it to drive it faster and more aggressively, the engine made more noise. Tilting the car would cause it to make some screeching sounds as if it was taking corners hard, and flipping it over would make the sound of a car wreck.

The Smart Brick can similarly sense what specific Smart Minifigures is near it and respond accordingly. Since the first three Smart Play sets are all based on Star Wars, it’s a little easier to explain how they interact with the Smart Brick. Take the Throne Room Duel & A-Wing set — it includes Smart Minifigs for Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker and Emperor Palpatine, and there are also Smart Tags that correspond to various actions the characters can take. If you place a Smart Brick behind Palpatine’s throne, the classic “Imperial March” theme will ring out and Palpatine himself will chatter a bit. The Minifigures don’t actually say real words, but they can still embody their characters well enough. Vader, for example, offers his classic breathing sound and exclaim if he’s defeated in a light saber duel.

Lego Smart Play Star Wars sets

That duel is a clever part of this set. There are moveable mounts you can place Luke and Vader on, along with a Smart Brick. To complete the battle scene, a Smart Tag tells the brick to take on the characteristics necessary for a light saber battle. As such, when you place the Minifigures in the mount, you’ll hear the classic sound of a light saber humming to life. And if you move the characters around and crash them together, you’ll hear the sounds of battle. Finally, knocking a Minifigure off its spot will tell the brick associated with that character to make their trademark sound of defeat — in Vader’s case, that’s the iconic “noooooooo.”

The other two new Smart Play sets are Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter and Luke’s Red Five X-Wing — an ideal pair for some space-based dogfighting. The X-Wing shows off how good the Smart Brick is at handling multiple inputs. Adding it to the X-Wing will make sounds of the ship humming to life, thanks to the X-Wing-specific Smart Tile. Sit Luke in the cockpit and you’ll hear the Jedi theme music play, and seating R2-D2 in the back will make the Droid chatter at you in its familiar tones.

The Smart Tile is how the Smart Brick identifies this set as an X-Wing figher.

Pitting the two ships against each other shows off more of the Smart Brick’s capabilities. Grabbing the ships and whooshing them through the air will make the Smart Brick play sounds that aren’t just generic engine noises — you can definitely hear the difference between the X-Wing and the TIE fighter. Each ship also has lasers you can activate, and if two kids are in the same room flying ships around and firing off lasers, you’ll hear the ships taking “damage” as well. Firing enough shots while aiming at another ship will eventually cause it to play some exploding sounds to indicate that it has gone up in flames — the Minifigures associated with the ship will also make sounds of dismay, as well.

At first glance, the sets themselves don’t feel wildly different than other smaller-scale Star Wars sets, but the people from the Lego Group giving the demo pointed out a few notable characteristics. The TIE fighter and X-Wing are both specifically designed to withstand more abuse from active play scenarios than the average Lego set, and they’re also specifically designed to fit will in a kid’s hand so they can run around and propel them through the air. The Throne Room set, meanwhile, has a detachable area where Luke and Vader can battle — you can remove and re-attach it to the throne area easily enough, but it’s good to separate it out for more aggressive light saber battles.

Lego Smart Play Star Wars sets

All told, I’m quite excited to see where Lego goes with its Smart Play system from here. Starting out with some simpler sets from a massive franchise like Star Wars is a logical way to introduce the system. There are obvious play scenarios that make perfect sense as a way to show off the Smart Brick. But I’m looking forward to a time when Lego starts selling tiles and Minifigures that can expand the capabilities of existing sets, whether they’re licensed or not. And the idea of smushing together Star Wars with some of the many other properties that Lego has access to (Jurassic World? DC or Marvel? Despicable Me or Bluey?) feels like just the kind of chaotic fun kids will love having.

That’s perhaps the most important point about Smart Play. While Lego has made major overtures for capturing the hearts and wallets of adult Lego fans, Smart Play is very clearly aimed at kids right now. There are no screens, apps or setup needed for Smart Play — it seems exceedingly easy to just pick up and start playing. Furthermore, Lego is using this technology to make Lego sets more interactive, something the company hopes will encourage more social play amongst kids. That’s a solid use of the technology packed into a Smart Brick if you ask me.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/lego-smart-play-hands-on-using-technology-to-get-kids-to-play-together-133000436.html?src=rss 

MTV shut down its remaining 24/7 music channels in several countries, including the UK and Australia, at the end of 2025. The main MTV network shifted its focus to reality shows long ago and it occasionally dips back into music with things like the Video Music Awards, but this shutdown felt like the end of an era. If you yearn for the days when MTV actually played music videos, though, you might be in luck. A developer who goes by the name of Flexasaurus Rex has paid tribute to the MTV of old with a web app that has several channels of non-stop streaming music. 

MTV Rewind has 11 channels at the time of writing, including one that features videos from the original channel’s first day of existence in 1981. There’s a channel dedicated to MTV Unplugged performances, a rap-focused stream, one for each decade from the ‘70s to the ‘20s and (my personal faves) 120 Minutes and Headbangers Ball options. MTV Rewind has so far pulled in more than 33,000 music videos. That’s over two months worth of music, as Loudwire notes.

“MTV was a cultural institution that changed music, fashion and youth culture. Then they stopped showing music videos and became reality TV,” Flexasaurus Rex said. “I felt a wave of sadness when the announcement hit. Nothing felt like it could fill that void. So I started coding. Built it in 48 hours: MTV Rewind.”

Each channel plays videos in a random order and there’s a shuffle all option if you can’t decide which stream to watch. If a song isn’t hitting for you, just tap the skip button. There are some era-appropriate ads too. For instance, I hadn’t seen this one from the Got Milk? campaign before it popped up. It reminded me of the J. Walter Weatherman gag from Arrested Development:

The app’s database is powered by IMVDb (The Internet Music Video Database). The videos are all pulled from YouTube, one of the things that helped spell the demise of MTV’s 24/7 music channels. There wasn’t exactly a strong case for Total Request Live to stay on the air, for instance, when we have access to practically every music video ever at our fingertips.  

One of my favorite things about MTV Rewind is that it has a hit counter like the Geocities of old. So very ‘90s. In fact, the whole thing is rad. Tubular, some might say. 

MTV Rewind isn’t associated with MTV or its parent company. However, it does use MTV’s name. Here’s hoping Paramount’s lawyers don’t crack down on this. It’s nice to have fun things on the internet. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/mtv-rewind-is-a-developers-tribute-to-247-music-video-channels-120000424.html?src=rss 

Philips Hue has introduced a new software feature called SpatialAware at CES 2026 designed to ensure that all the lights in a space are in harmony with each other. Available exclusively for the Hue Bridge Pro, it takes into account each light point in a room and tailors the colors to ensure a natural representation. “In a sunset scene, for example, the lights on one side of the room emit warm yellow tones to mimic the setting sun, while the ceiling lights on the opposite side reflect darker shades,” the company wrote on its blog. The new feature is set to launch in the spring of 2026.

To use the feature, you scan a room with your smartphone camera and use augmented reality to determine the positions of individual lights. A smart algorithm then ensures each light point is coordinated. Any lamps added after setup will be taken into account. Then, you use SpatialAware to select a scene like “Lake Mist” and activate the mode. 

Philips Hue room without SpatialAware

In the example at top, the company shows how all the lights in a room are “no linger mixed together in a colorful jumble [above] but are perfectly coordinated. The same applies, for example, to the gradient color transitions of corresponding products, where SpatialAware even takes the orientation into account.”

Philips Hue also introduced a few other features. To start with, the company is adding support for migrating multiple Hue Bridges to a single Bridge Pro during the setup process. In addition, the Hue Secure Camera, Hue Secure video doorbell and Hue contact sensors will soon work with Apple Home. Users will also see live video with picture-in-picture mode on Apple TV and get real-time alerts on the Apple Home app. 

The Hue AI assistant has been updated so you can now creation automations based on natural language requests — for instance, “wake me up at 6:45 AM every day except on Wednesdays.” New AI assistant languages have been added (Dutch, German and Spanish) and the Hue app will start showing automations within the rooms and zones they’re set to control, so you won’t need to jump around in the app as much. All those new features are set to arrive in Q1 2026. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/philips-hue-spatialaware-feature-harmonizes-all-the-lights-in-a-room-101843600.html?src=rss 

Not everyone remembers the unique controllers that never quite made it. As third-party peripheral makers attempt to offer gamers something different to the likes of DualSense and Joy-Cons, they often have to go in a different direction. GameSir’s Swift Drive (apparently a working product name) is definitely that. And if you remember 1998’s JogCon for the PS1, there’s definitely some shared DNA.

It features a compact steering wheel at the center of an otherwise typical controller design. It’s also got force feedback, tech usually found in (full-size!) steering wheel controllers. GameSir says it has a “high precision” Hall Effect encoder built in for “ultra-accurate” steering.

You will be able to adjust the steering range from 30 to 1080 degrees, but you’d likely want to keep it high – it’s the entire point of this controller. GameSir has added Hall-effect sensors to its more typical joysticks and buttons, while each trigger has its own haptic motor to simulate wheel slip and braking. Several RGB lights across the top of the controller will even attempt to replicate your in-game RPMs, which is a cute touch.

On the show floor at CES, I drove a big rig in a demonstration area that was stripped down to wireframe ramps and curved surfaces. The force-feedback is powerful and it’s a surprisingly satisfying driving experience as I wheeled around, rotating the steering wheel with both thumbs. The steering wheel can also be customized with different plates. It felt like a miniaturized steering-wheel controller and would lock out when I oversteered or stopped. You may be concerned about battery life, but the controller should last 20-30 hours on a single charge.

A GameSir spokesperson said the controller is expected to go on sale later this year, but pricing has not yet been confirmed.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/this-game-controller-has-a-force-feedback-steering-wheel-lodged-in-the-middle-034521141.html?src=rss 

If the world didn’t already have one too many digital assistants, Lenovo is adding another one to the pile. On Tuesday evening, the company announced Qira, a cross-device AI for both its own computers and Motorola smartphones. Set to arrive later this quarter, it will live at the system level of Lenovo devices. Users won’t need to open or switch to the assistant. Instead, “it’s always present,” says Lenovo.   

Of course, you can ignore Qira, and it will stay quiet if you don’t need the software to do anything for you. Occasionally, Lenovo says Qira will surface proactive suggestions, and for frequent users, the company promises a machine learning system that will develop a “living model” of your world, “understanding context, continuity and personal patterns of over time.” In practice, that means Qira can write emails for you, transcribe and translate meetings and provide summaries of things you might have missed. You know, all the usual stuff every company is offering with their on-device assistants.  

From a privacy standpoint, Lenovo says Qira employs a hybrid architecture that “prioritizes” on-device processing, and won’t collect customer data without the user’s permission. “Every aspect of the Lenovo Qira experience is designed to be secure, ethical, and accountable.” I asked Lenovo how Qira would interact with Copilot and Gemini on the company’s PCs and Motorola smartphones, and if the new assistant would add to the processing load on those devices, but the company has yet to respond to my email. I’ll update this article when I hear back. 

On paper, creating a dedicated AI assistant for the company’s devices is something I’m sure Lenovo executives agreed was a good idea, but when many people aren’t even using Copilot, it feels like a misread of what Lenovo users want. In April, reporting from Newcomer suggested Copilot had flatlined at around 20 million weekly users in 2024. By contrast, over that same period, ChatGPT had grown to 400 million weekly users, and as of late 2025, there are 800 million people using OpenAI’s chatbot every week. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/lenovo-and-motorola-are-releasing-their-own-on-device-ai-assistant-010000696.html?src=rss 

After kicking off its Moto Things accessory line with wireless earbuds, a Bluetooth tracker and a cheap smartwatch in 2024, Motorola is doubling down. At CES 2026, the company is announcing a sequel to its tracker, the Moto Tag 2, a stylus for its new folding phone, the Moto Pen Ultra and a more premium smartwatch called the Moto Watch.

The Moto Watch has a 47mm round face with a stainless steel crown and an aluminum frame. The smartwatch comes with a PANTONE “Volcanic Ash” silicone band, but is designed to support third-party 22mm bands, too, which greatly expands its customization options. Motorola says the watch can get up to 13 days of battery life normally or seven days with its always-on display enabled, and also features a built-in speaker and microphone for hands-free controls and audio notifications. The Moto Watch is meant to be fairly durable, as well, with Gorilla Glass 3 front glass and IP68 water and dust resistance.

The actual fitness features of the watch are powered by Motorola’s new partner Polar, a company with its own line of fitness trackers and smartwatches. The Moto Watch lets users log their calorie consumption throughout the day, track their workouts and activity levels (with a daily Activity Goal and Activity Score) and monitor their sleep. The watch also has built-in dual-frequency GPS for tracking runs, bike rides and hikes.

A hand holding a Moto Pen Ultra writing on a Razr Fold.

While Samsung dropped S Pen stylus support on its latest version of the Galaxy Z Fold 7 (one of many ways the company got the foldable so thin), Motorola is embracing styluses on its new Razr Fold. The Moto Pen Ultra comes with a charging case and supports things like palm rejection and tilt sensitivity for more accurate strokes. The Moto Pen Ultra can also be used with Google’s Circle to Search and new AI-powered software features like “Sketch to Image,” which converts hand-drawn sketches into detailed images.

A bike seat with a Moto Tag 2 attached to it.

The Moto Tag 2 builds on the original Moto Tag with a longer battery life and better durability. The Moto Tag 2 is IP68-rated and now gets over 500 days of battery life in comparison to the original Tag’s year-long battery. As before, the Bluetooth tracker connects to Google’s Find Hub network and Motorola says the tracker’s ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna and support for Bluetooth Channel Sounding can help users determine the exact distance they are from their tracked object. You can also press the button on the Moto Tag 2 to ring your phone if it’s missing, or customize the Tag to act as a camera shutter button.

Motorola hasn’t shared pricing details for any of its new Moto Things accessories, though it has provided a release date for at least one. The Moto Watch will be available on January 22 from the company’s website. The Moto Tag 2 and Moto Pen Ultra, meanwhile, will both be available in North America “in the coming months.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/motorola-expands-its-moto-things-lineup-with-a-new-bluetooth-tracker-stylus-and-smartwatch-010000669.html?src=rss 

Lenovo has experimented more with laptops featuring rollable displays than pretty much any other PC maker and at CES 2026 it’s keeping that trend going with the XD Rollable Concept.

Equipped with a 180-degree Gorilla Glass Victus 2 cover, the XD Rollable concept features a very futuristic design. However, underneath, it has the same basic engineering as last year’s ThinkBook Plus Gen 6. That means with the touch of a button, its 13.3-inch flexible OLED display can expand to 16 inches, which gives you around 50 percent extra screen space in just a few seconds. The main difference with Lenovo’s latest concept is that instead of hiding the unused section of its rollable display underneath its keyboard, the XD’s panel wraps up and over its lid to create a “world-facing” display around back. This allows people sitting on the other side of the laptop to see content, with the laptop capable of mirroring elements from its main display or using that space as a small secondary monitor. 

Now I will admit that after seeing the XD Rollable in person, its design does feel a bit gimmicky. Even though Lenovo’s space-themed animation that appears when the laptop’s display extends is pretty slick, I’m not sure how helpful that world-facing display really is. In normal use, you can’t even see it because it’s on the other side of the lid and while I suppose you could utilize that area for meetings or presentations, I think most people would be much better off simply connecting the notebook to a dedicated secondary monitor or projector. 

That said, I do like that contrary to the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6, by exposing the unused part of the XD Rollable’s display when it’s not extended, you get a little bit of extra value out of it. At the very least, it beats stashing the rest of the panel underneath the keyboard where it won’t be seen at all. On top of that, I like the look of having no bezel along the top of the display and you can even use touch controls on the edge of the display to control widgets or expand its flexible screen. Interestingly, the coolest part about the XD Rollable might not even be its screen, but the motors and rails that Lenovo uses to extend its display, which are easily seen beneath its glass design.

Meanwhile, the rest of the XD Rollable is very down to earth with it featuring a comfy keyboard and a decent-sized touchpad. The main downsides are that its glass lid makes the concept a bit heavier than a more traditional 13-inch notebook and you only get two USB-C ports. But considering that Lenovo isn’t planning to put this thing into production, that lack of connectivity or info regarding its specs shouldn’t come as a big surprise.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/lenovo-goes-sci-fi-with-its-wild-xd-rollable-concept-at-ces-2026-010000817.html?src=rss 

A couple years ago Lenovo showed off a concept laptop stand that used cameras and AI to follow you around. But now at CES 2026, the company has taken that idea and turned it into a full-fledged system that it’s actually going to sell. 

Dubbed the ThinkBook Plus Gen 7 Auto Twist, instead of a laptop stand, Lenovo created a standalone notebook with the same functionality, plus a little more. The impressive thing is that despite having a built-in motor that lets its display follow you around, the laptop’s design doesn’t look all that outlandish. And after playing around with it a bit, I discovered a handful of other tricks it can do. 

Instead of using your fingers to open the lid like a luddite, all you have to do is knock a couple times and then the laptop’s display will pop up by itself. From there, you’re greeted with a surprisingly good-looking 14-inch 2.8K OLED display and a traditional keyboard that won’t upset longtime ThinkBook or ThinkPad aficionados. You also get solid specs including support for Intel’s new Core Ultra Series 3 processors, up to 32GB of RAM, 2TB of storage and a decently large 75Whr battery. The laptop also sports a strong selection of ports including two USB-C with Thunderbolt 4, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, a full-size HDMI jack and Wi-Fi 7. And all of this comes in a chassis that weighs 3.1 pounds, which is very reasonable for a 14-inch machine. 

As for its auto-twisting abilities, the main use case is during presentation and video calls, where the laptop can use its motor, 10-MP webcam and AI to track your face as you move around so you stay neatly in frame. Compared to the concept I saw before, the laptop pivots and rotates its display more smoothly (though it’s still a bit jerky) and if you want, you can even make it dance to music. Alternatively, the laptop can analyze your posture to position its screen in the optimal position to prevent slouching or automatically transform between laptop, tablet and presentation modes. While this is a really minor inclusion, my favorite thing about the Auto Twist is that when you turn the system off, the laptop will automatically close its own lid, as if it was tucking itself into bed. 

The other goal of this laptop is that Lenovo is touting it as a vertical AI solution for small businesses. Naturally this means that the system supports Microsoft’s Copilot+ features, though we also saw a demo of Lenovo’s own AI companion. Not only can you talk to it, ask it questions or use it to translate other languages like a regular digital assistant, the company created a friendly face that reacts to your queries and comments. 

The one odd inclusion, which probably won’t make it to retail units, was an AI feature designed to help you understand hidden meanings or subtext in other languages. However, in my experience (as seen in the video above), this turned into a weird excuse to get negged by AI or at the very least make yourself more paranoid about what your friends or coworkers are saying about you. 

My favorite thing about the Auto Twist is that if you shut it down, it will automatically close its own lid.

In the end, I’m still not sure I need a laptop with a display and a camera that can follow me around during video calls. But if you have happy feet during work meetings or like to express yourself through movement, the ThinkBook Plus Gen 7 Auto Twist might be the business notebook you need. Plus, considering it features relatively novel tech, its starting price of $1,649 is surprisingly approachable. You’ll just have to wait until it goes on sale sometime in June.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/ces-2026-the-lenovo-thinkbook-plus-gen-7-auto-twist-wont-let-you-out-of-it-sight-010000913.html?src=rss