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Looking for an all-in-one soundbar that sounds as big as it looks? Sennheiser’s Ambeo Max uses its oversized body to produce beefy, enveloping sound, and right now you can grab it for just $2,000 at Best Buy, a sizable $1,000 markdown from the usual list price. It’s one of our favorite standalone premium soundbars, particularly if you don’t want to deal with an exterior subwoofer but still want bigger bass than you’re likely to find on smaller options.While it might be a bit larger than your average soundbar, Sennheiser uses the space well, packing a ton of functionality and drivers…

Bob Schmetterer, the former chairman and chief executive officer of Euro RSCG and a founding partner of Messner Vetere Berger Carey Schmetterer (MVBCS), has died at 82.Tributes are pouring in from the industry to mark the life and career of Schmetterer, a leader widely credited with helping steer agencies and brands into the digital era. Over his 35-year career, Schmetterer played a pivotal role in reshaping how creativity was applied not just to communications, but to business strategy and growth.Starting out in 1971, Schmetterer got his first agency job at Scali, McCabe, Solves (SMS). Perdue Chicken was his first client, and…

Aetherflux, the space solar power startup launched by Robinhood cofounder Baiju Bhatt, is in talks to raise $250 million to $350 million for a Series B round that would value the company at $2 billion. The fundraising was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, which said that Index Ventures is leading the deal. Aetherflux has collected about $80 million since its founding in 2024. Aetherflux declined to comment. Aetherflux has shifted focus in recent months as it pushed its power-generating technology toward space data centers, deemphasizing the transmission of electricity to the Earth with lasers that was its starting…

Apple is allergic to nostalgia. In 2008, when the Macintosh was about to turn 25, I mentioned it to Steve Jobs and he instantly shut down the discussion. “If you look backward in this business, you’ll be crushed,” he told me icily. “You have to look forward.” Now that Apple’s 50th anniversary looms, however, the company is begrudgingly engaging in a series of concerts and commemorations, and we’re being blitzed by books, articles, and oral histories of the company’s early years.Rather than join the crowded trek down memory lane, I asked Apple to do what Jobs suggested—look forward. What does…

Over the last few week, X eliminated over 20 nontechnical roles, and has laid off Angela Zepeda, the ad industry veteran who joined the social platform in 2024 as its head of global marketing, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.Zepeda’s LinkedIn profile indicates she lost her job last month.The company is trimming talent as its billionaire owner Elon Musk prepares to take his rocket company SpaceX public in an IPO targeting a valuation of around $1 trillion. SpaceX could reportedly file as soon as this week. X was folded into Musk’s AI company xAI in a $45 billion merger last…

A hacking group backed by the Iranian government dubbed “Handala” said on Friday that it has breached the personal email account of FBI director Kash Patel.  In a post on its website, Handala included several pictures of a visibly younger Patel, as well as a link to a cache of files that appear to come from Patel’s personal Gmail account.  TechCrunch confirmed that at least some of the emails leaked by Handala were from Patel’s alleged Gmail account by verifying information contained within the message headers. These message headers contain information from the sender that helps email delivery systems confirm…

On Thursday, hours-long security lines snaked through New York City’s LaGuardia Airport. The wait was far from the longest in the country—George Bush International Airport in Houston reported three and a half hour lines. Over a month into a partial government shutdown that has left some Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees working without pay, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents are calling in sick or leaving work en masse, leading to travel chaos around the US. The Trump administration’s solution? Send Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in.ICE agents were deployed to at least 14 airports on Monday, ostensibly in…

Almost four years after launching a security feature called Lockdown Mode, Apple says it has yet to see a case where someone’s device was hacked with these additional security protections switched on.  “We are not aware of any successful mercenary spyware attacks against a Lockdown Mode-enabled Apple device,” Apple spokesperson Sarah O’Rourke told TechCrunch on Friday. It’s the tech giant’s most recent affirmation that Apple devices with Lockdown Mode can withstand government spyware attacks, after first making the claim a year after the security feature’s debut. Apple in 2022 announced Lockdown Mode, an opt-in series of security protections that switches…

Every year, without fail, the US experiences at least one major disruption in air travel due to severe weather, government shutdowns, software outages, or power outages—you name it.Right now, a partial government shutdown has meant that thousands of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers have not been paid for several weeks, causing many to call out of work or quit. That has meant long security lines—more than three-hour waits—ensuing chaos at airports around the country. It’s unclear how long this mess will last, so it’s worth thinking about other options.Flights are also expensive and hard on the environment. If you can…

By every metric, the Cayenne delivers improvement over the smaller Macan—and so it should, given the price difference and Porsche’s vehicle hierarchy—but on paper, its range and charge speed are already behind what Chinese giant BYD has coming down the tracks. But cars from performance brands like Porsche, even fully electric SUVs, are about more than just the spec sheet. An electric Cayenne needs to drive like a Porsche, feel like a Porsche, and remind its owner why they’ve paid handsomely for that badge on the steering wheel.Curved ScreenIn that regard, the new Cayenne is up to the job. The…

Other Good MagSafe WalletsPhotograph: Jacob RoachESR Geo Wallet Stand for $43: Apple’s Find My app lets you track your devices if they’re lost, and ESR’s Geo wallet has it built right into the wallet itself. This is the wallet I’ve been using for the past few weeks, and outside of the Find My capabilities, I love that it strikes a great balance between size and usability. ESR says it can hold up to three cards, but I’ve been using mine with four—three cards plus my ID—and I can get them all out easily. Although having a wallet with magnetic charging…

Enterprise AI company Cohere on Thursday launched its first voice model: Transcribe is an open source automatic speech recognition model that can be used for tasks like note-taking and speech analysis. Relatively light at just 2 billion parameters, the model is meant for use with consumer-grade GPUs for those who want to self-host it. It currently supports 14 languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Dutch, Polish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Arabic. Cohere says Transcribe beats models such as Zoom Scribe v1, IBM Granite 4.0 1B, ElevenLabs Scribe v2, and Qwen3-ASR-1.7B Speech on the Hugging Face Open ASR…

It’s not easy to get an interview with Sam Altman—just ask Adam Bhala Lough, the filmmaker behind the recent documentary Deepfaking Sam Altman.Lough originally planned a feature exploring the potential and perils of AI that would center on a conversation with the OpenAI CEO. But, after having his inquiries ignored for months, he opted instead to commission a chatbot that mimicked Altman’s speech patterns and approximated his facial expressions by way of a digital avatar.The real Altman did sit down, however, for the new feature The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, which hits theaters March 27. So…

This week’s best ads span the personal and the political, the comic and the sincere.Pamela Anderson championed AI-free authenticity for Aerie, Cardi B tackled inbox anxiety for Yahoo Mail, and Bruce Springsteen gave his voice to one of the most consequential legal battles in recent memory.Plus, KFC dared fans to prove their devotion to chicken, and Peroni reminded people it’s been an Italian masterpiece all along.Our Most Effective Ad of the Week, in partnership with EDO, is just in time for spring.Aerie | “100% Aerie Real” by Shadow Creative Marketing & CommunicationsAerie partnered with Pamela Anderson to double down on…

The surveillance tech industry today is in the spotlight, but not for the best reasons. With controversy around the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement tapping into Flock’s camera network to surveil people, and home camera maker Ring drawing criticism for building new features that would enable law enforcement to ask homeowners for footage of their neighborhoods, there’s currently a broad debate around safety, privacy, and who gets to watch whom. But controversy doesn’t erase markets, and the continued improvement of vision-language models has only blown more wind in the sails of companies building new ways to help companies monitor what…

In early December, Ahmed recalls, “we heard tanks advancing from the edge of the yellow line.” Soon, a 14-year-old girl was rushed into the ICU with a shrapnel wound to the abdomen. The girl needed 250 milliliters of blood, “a precious resource” at Al-Shifa, and a splenectomy. Even with minimal supplies, even amid an attack that was not supposed to happen, the doctors at Al-Shifa saved her life.By the time Ahmed left, the girl was discharged, “smiling.” Her wounds were so severe that the doctors used some of their gauze allotment on her. But the girl had no choice but…