Category: 4. Technology

Global Earth Day published studies that found pets and babies are especially at risk for microplastic exposure from household dust. Both household members stay low to the ground—closer to dust, microplastics, and particulates that are invisible to the naked eye on carpets and floors—and put everything in their mouths, making it easier for them to ingest microplastic dust that could be on those objects.

While that household dust could be anywhere in your home, carpet turns out to have its own issues. My fellow WIRED reviewer Lisa Wood Shapiro discovered her carpet was harboring PM 2.5 while testing air quality monitors. Never heard of PM 2.5? It’s particulate matter small enough to enter the lungs and bloodstream, contributing to health problems like heart attacks, hypertension, and respiratory issues. Shapiro found that simply walking across her carpet caused spikes in PM 2.5 readings on her air quality monitors, as the matter stored in the carpet was released back into the air—and potentially into her lungs —by her footfalls.

The Simple Solution

Photograph: Nena Farrell

The same thing can solve both of these issues: more frequent vacuuming.

Aidan Charron, an associate director at EarthDay.org, recommends vacuuming daily, along with avoiding polyester rugs and carpets in your home. Polyester is a plastic-based textile, so having that fabric in your living spaces could introduce more microplastics into your home and dust. You might want to consider a wool rug, like one of our favorites, below, or even a washable rug like this one from Revival, recommended by WIRED’s air quality expert, Lisa Wood Shapiro.

Courtesy of Rejuvenation

Rejuvenation

Sumaru Hand-Knotted Rug

When it comes to mitigating indoor PM 2.5, Shapiro specifically recommends vacuuming with a HEPA-filter-equipped vacuum (like our favorite stick vacuum, below) to prevent those particles from escaping into the air as even smaller particles.

Whether or not you’re worried about general dirt or these particles, you should be vacuuming carpet daily or close to daily. That’s especially true in high-traffic areas that are both getting the most dirt exposure from people walking on them, and which are exposing your family to whatever is stored in that carpet. If you’re on that carpet every day, try to vacuum it a few times a week at least. It’s also good for the carpet’s longevity to vacuum frequently.

Hard floors can be vacuumed closer to once a week; I’m partial to at least a weekly vacuum-and-mopping session. Hard floors won’t store particulate matter like carpet can, but they can still accumulate plenty of dust. Steam mops (like our favorite, above) are another great way to really clean a hard floor. If you find yourself dreading how often you might need to vacuum, grab a robot vacuum that can do some of the work for you.

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Govee has launched a new TV backlight kit for folks who like to add immersive lighting that syncs with whatever is playing on the display. The Govee TV Backlight 3 Pro features an “industry-first HDR triple-camera wide-area color matching system,” according to Govee, which is designed to capture the colors on your TV screen with greater accuracy than other cameras in the smart-lighting company’s older kits.

“For the first time, this innovative system integrates a groundbreaking image sensor that features HDR capture capability, delivering high-fidelity 105dB dynamic range imaging for superior signal-to-noise performance,” Govee said in its press release. The TV Backlight 3 Pro light strip that attaches to the back of displays has also been upgraded to be 30 percent brighter than its predecessors, and it uses an “AI intelligent color mixing system” that automatically adjusts the backlight’s white balance and saturation settings.

The Govee TV Backlight 3 Pro will be available sometime in September, with the price and size models to be announced later. Pricing for the Lite version of the Govee TV Backlight 3 started at $90 when it launched in 2024, so we’ll have to see how the Pro model stacks up in comparison.

Govee has some colorful new ideas for how a light strip can decorate your home. Its latest, the Permanent Outdoor Lights Prism, puts three lights in every bulb along the strip, with a prism lens above them that’s designed to create three distinct or blended beams of light.

The strip supports full color, and Govee imagines the three beams being used to create vibrant effects that a more traditional light strip — emitting a single color per bulb — wouldn’t be capable of. That includes either a more natural gradient transitioning from one fan of light to the next or stark multicolored blades that look far different than traditional Christmas lights.

Govee’s new strip supports Matter, Alexa, and Google Assistant, and it comes with an IP68 water- and dust-resistance rating so it can stay permanently mounted outside your house. The strips start shipping on September 22nd in the US. Pricing wasn’t shared before publication, but you can bet they’ll be expensive. Govee’s Permanent Outdoor Lights 2 run $330 for 100 feet, and its Permanent Outdoor Lights Pro run $440 for 100 feet.

Ecovacs’ latest mopping robovac may not need to take charging breaks while cleaning your home. The company says its new Deebot X11 Omnicyclone uses GaN-enabled fast charging to power up every time it returns to its base station for mop rinses, allowing it to keep cleaning without stopping to charge.

The X11 Omnicyclone robovac comes with 19,500Pa of suction power and an upgraded roller mop that extends up to 15mm to reach corners. It’s capable of traversing thresholds, rugs, doorframes, and uneven surfaces using a 4WD system with “mechanical climbing levers” that automatically engage when it detects flooring changes. Ecovacs says the robovac can “reliably” handle up to 4cm shifts, while its mop lifts up to 10mm.

The robovac’s base station ditches disposable dust bags for an auto-empty technology that “delivers consistent suction and multi-stage filtration,” according to Ecovacs. It’s also capable of cleaning the nylon mop roller with hot water, as well as drying it.

The Deebot X11 Omnicyclone robovac costs $1,499 and is available for purchase on Ecovacs’ website and Amazon in the US and Canada.

TCL has been making its E Ink-inspired Nxtpaper phones for years, but it’s taken the company until now to realize that parents are a likely demographic for it. That’s finally been remedied with the Nxtpaper 5G Junior, a kids phone launching in Europe with a focus on eye health and screentime, which arrives alongside the more mainstream Nxtpaper 60 Ultra.

The Nxtpaper 5G Junior has been announced at the IFA trade show, but it won’t go on sale in Europe until December and will cost £159 / €249 (around $250). It will also include a protective case. So far, there are no plans for a US launch.

Like other recent Nxtpaper phones, the key selling point is a dedicated button that activates Max Ink Mode, which switches the matte display to a monochromatic mode that looks a lot like E Ink and is easier on the eyes for reading. The appeal to parents will be an extra way to manage screentime: not just a binary on / off, but an in-between option that’s better for kids’ eyes and not particularly well-suited to playing Fortnite. It extends the device’s battery life, too.

The phone includes a variety of parental controls powered by Google’s Family Link, along with a “Digital Detox” mode to encourage healthy phone use. TCL has also created a range of cutesy characters called the AI Genius Squad, which look like they’ve been lifted from a slightly subpar Pixar movie.

One immediate downside is that this is a pretty big phone. With a 6.7-inch screen and the included case, this will be a bulky, heavy device that might be a little tricky for smaller hands. It comes with 256GB of storage — enough for plenty of apps and games — and dual rear cameras.

TCL is also launching the Nxtpaper 60 Ultra, the first phone to ship with the latest Nxtpaper 4.0 tech, with reduced glare and display flicker. It’s even bigger, with a 7.2-inch display and has a triple rear camera, including a 50-megapixel telephoto lens, plus optional stylus support. It’s launching today in Europe from €449 (around $525), as well as Asia and Latin America.

Baseus has announced a new accessory that can wirelessly charge a Qi2-compatible smartphone directly on an outlet, making it useful as a hands-free wall mount. It’s reminiscent of a similar wireless charger that Zens released last year, but Baseus’ new EnerGeek GT01 has additional functionality, including a 10,000mAh battery that can be separated from the adapter’s AC plug for use as a portable power bank and wireless charger, leaving behind a simple 27W USB-C charger still stuck in the wall.

Wireless charging is limited to Qi2 rates so your phone will only charge at 15W instead of the faster 25W that you’ll get from new Qi2.2 chargers. If you’re in a hurry to revive a dying phone, or want to charge a device that’s not Qi-compatible, the EnerGeek GT01 also has a USB-C port that outputs 45W on the device’s power bank half. The Qi2 pad and both USB-C ports can all be used simultaneously when the two halves are connected, but while wireless charging will maintain a steady 15W rate, the two USB ports will dynamically share the remaining available power.

Rounding out the novelties is a small LCD display on one side that shows the battery’s remaining charge level and an estimate of how many hours and minutes are left before it’s fully depleted based on what’s currently drawing power.

It’s expected to launch later this year for $89.99, which is a bit pricey for a 10,000mAh power bank — even with wireless charging capabilities (Anker has one for $60). You’re paying a premium for the convenience of fewer cables and adapters.

For serious gamers, a stable, high-speed internet connection is essential for competitive gameplay, seamless live streaming, and real-time server communication. Intel provides many of the building blocks for gamers, making reliable connectivity a core part of the gaming experience.

To give gamers deeper insight into the quality of their internet connection and help them avoid lag, connection drops, or poor streaming quality, Intel integrates Speedtest Custom™ from Ookla into its Intel® Killer™ Performance Suite, providing gamers with a reliable way to measure, validate, and troubleshoot their connectivity in real time during gameplay, when every millisecond matters.

Situation

Gaming today isn’t just about graphics or processing power; it’s about the overall performance of your connection. While download and upload speeds remain critical for gaming—especially for game updates, patches, and streaming—latency and jitter are also key metrics that directly impact both casual and competitive gaming experiences. High levels of either often result in delayed reactions, missed targets, and frustrated gamers.

Live streaming adds another layer of complexity, with platforms like Twitch and YouTube Gaming requiring substantial upload bandwidth to maintain high bitrates and smooth frame rates. Meanwhile, the typical gaming household rarely does just one thing at a time. Users increasingly multitask across bandwidth-intensive activities—gaming while streaming video, using voice chat, or sharing files—creating network congestion that can impact performance.

Without immediate visibility into what’s happening on their network, gamers are often left guessing when performance issues arise during critical moments.

Download the full case study

Check out our full case study to discover how intel integrates Ookla’s Speedtest Custom into Intel Killer to reduce lag, manage bandwidth, and deliver peak gaming performance.

Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.

About the Author

Ookla

Ookla® is a global leader in connectivity intelligence that provides consumers, businesses, and other organizations with data-driven insights to improve networks and connected experiences.

Mighty Mega Evolution Pokémon ex are coming to the Pokémon Trading Card Game in a big way in the upcoming expansion, Mega Evolution. We wanted to share an early look at two of those new cards, Mega Venusaur ex and Mega Kangaskhan ex, along with some of the other cards that will be available in this exciting collection of cards. How will these Pokémon and their new attacks change the game? Start formulating your strategies now, then test them out when Mega Evolution arrives on September 26, 2025.

This bold, beautiful special illustration rare card shows off Mega Venusaur ex in all its botanical glory. It’s not just pretty though—this Mega Evolution Pokémon is ready to throw down. Your opponent will take quite a hit from Mega Venusaur ex’s Jungle Dump attack. At a cost of four Energy, it may take a little effort before you can use it, but once you do, the attack will do 240 damage to your opponent’s Active Pokémon and heal 30 damage from Mega Venusaur ex. Plus, its Solar Transfer Ability can help get all that Energy onto this card. The Ability allows you to move a Basic Energy from one of your Pokémon to another as often as you like during your turn. That powerful Jungle Dump might be ready to use before your opponent knows it!

Mother and child are rarin’ for battle on this Mega Kangaskhan ex special illustration rare card. You can feel the explosive energy blasting forth, which should come as no surprise considering the potential power of its Rapid-Fire Combo attack. For the cost of three Energy, this attack does an already impressive 200 damage, but it also allows you to flip a coin until you get tails. For every heads you get, the attack does an additional 50 damage. With a bit of luck, this combo could be truly devastating. Not only that, but Mega Kangaskhan ex’s Run Errand Ability lets you bolster your hand once each turn by allowing you to draw two cards if the Pokémon is in the Active Spot.

The lovable Celebi may not be a heavy hitter with this card (its Solar Cutter attack only does 30 damage), but its Traverse Time attack could prove invaluable for quickly getting the cards you need in your hand. For just one Energy, this attack lets you search your deck and bring three in any combination of Pokémon and Stadium cards into your hand. You’ll have your team ready to go in no time with the help of this cheerful little Mythical Pokémon.

If you thought that Celebi card was adorable, you are absolutely not prepared for a grinning Pachirisu bounding through tree branches that are covered with delicate pink blossoms. For such a cutie, though, this Pokémon packs quite a bite. Pachirisu’s Electrified Incisors attack may not look like much at first—it only does 10 damage—but it hides a devious aftereffect. Whenever your opponent attaches an Energy card from their hand to the Defending Pokémon during their next turn, that Pokémon gets hit with eight damage counters. Ouch!

Just what is Grafaiai contemplating as it strokes its chin and furrows its brow? We suspect trouble, but maybe it’s just thinking about its next masterpiece. Whatever its intentions, you can be sure that the Toxic Monkey Pokémon will annoy your opponent to no end with its Miraculous Paint attack. For one and one Energy, the attack does 90 damage and also has you flip a coin. If the coin lands on heads, you can choose a Special Condition to inflict upon your opponent’s Active Pokémon. Will you pick Asleep, Burned, Confused, Paralyzed, or Poisoned? Whatever your decision, your opponent is unlikely to be pleased.

You’ll find these and over 180 other cards when the Pokémon TCG: Mega Evolution expansion releases on September 26, 2025.

A good streaming device can revamp an older TV for much less than it would cost to replace the set all together. One of our favorites in the Google TV Streamer 4K, and you can pick it up for 20 percent off right now. It’s on sale for $80, which is close to a record-low price and a few dollars less than it was during Prime Day this summer.

The TV Streamer 4K topped our list of the best streaming devices. It’s a smartly-designed product that just works. We enjoyed the clean interface and the fantastic remote that ships with the device.

The processor is speedy and this thing can stream content in 4K at 60FPS. It integrates with HDR, HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. On the audio side of things, it supports formats like Dolby Digital and Dolby Atmos. It can even handle spatial audio, so long as you’re wearing the Pixel Buds Pro earbuds.

The interface includes a smart home control hub, which we praised in our official review. This lets users easily control smart lights and thermostats, among other gadgets. The TV Streamer 4K also offers voice control, which we found to be useful.

There are only two minor knocks with this one. The original asking price is on the higher end, but this sale alleviates that concern. The unit also includes some fairly useless AI integration, but it’s 2025 so what else is new?

Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

LinkedIn will now require some users to verify their identity before they change job titles in an attempt to cut down on scams on the platform. The new identity verification rules will specifically apply to executives and recruiters who interact with job seekers or represent a company in one form or another.

As part of these changes, LinkedIn says users who add or update their title to anything recruiter-related (recruiter, talent acquisition, etc.) will have to verify their workplace on their profiles. The same identity verification rules will apply to executives, as well, which LinkedIn says covers titles like “Executive Director, Managing Director, and Vice President.” Verifying your workplace requires you to provide an official email address that uses your company’s domain name. The new requirement only applies to people changing roles, existing recruiters and executives won’t have to verify.

LinkedIn has offered similar verification tools to select companies upon request, but now the platform says it’ll open up the option to every company with a LinkedIn page via a new “Premium Company Page subscription.” A verified company should be easier to trust when paired with verified employees.

While LinkedIn is best known as a home for thought leadership and a necessary evil in job hunts, it’s also the site of a large amount of fraud. Scammers impersonate company employees to collect data from fake job postings or conduct elaborate investment schemes, . LinkedIn has automated systems for weeding out fake accounts, and rolled out an earlier wave of anti-scam features focused on job postings in 2023, but this new system should offer even more security.