Category: BUYSEMPERFI

For months, GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has been dog-whistling to supporters of extremist far-right ideologies and wild conspiracy theories like QAnon. On Wednesday night, at the fourth Republican presidential debate, Ramaswamy went full tilt: After blasting the three other debaters for turning on former president Donald Trump, Ramaswamy argued, without evidence, that the January 6 Capitol riot was an inside job, the 2020 presidential election was stolen, the government had lied about 9/11, and the “deep state” was responsible for all these things.

Then, Ramaswamy claimed that the “great replacement theory is not some grand right-wing conspiracy theory, but a basic statement of the Democratic Party’s platform.” The great replacement theory is a widely-debunked conspiracy that the liberal establishment, along with a cabal of “global elites,” is encouraging the immigration of people of color in order to “replace” white voters.

Immediately, white supremacists online celebrated the reference to the racist and antisemitic conspiracy.

Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist influencer who was livestreaming his reaction to the debate on the alternative streaming platform Rumble, appeared visibly shocked that Ramaswamy went so far. He watched open-mouthed as Ramaswamy continued to boost wild conspiracies. “Let’s go,” a visibly delighted Fuentes told his thousands of viewers.

A clip of Fuentes’ reaction was posted on X by Irish antisemitic and anti-immigrant influencer Keith O’Brien, known online as Keith Woods, with the comment: “Time to mainstream this discussion across the West.”

The post quickly racked up tens of thousands of likes and shares, including from Ramaswamy’s own official X account. “Repost by Vivek, very cool,” O’Brien wrote on his Telegram channel. “We love Vivek.”

Ramaswamy subsequently deleted the post from his feed, but within minutes of Ramaswamy boosting the conspiracies, verified accounts on X and major far-right influencers on platforms like Telegram were celebrating. “Vivek says ALL the RIGHT things,” John Sabel, a QAnon promoter known as QAnon John, wrote on his Telegram channel.

Jordan Sather, another QAnon influencer, claimed that initial media reports of Ramaswamy spouting conspiracy theories “prove that Vivek kicked ass on the debate stage last night.”

Ramaswamy did not immediately respond to requests for comment from WIRED. The night before the debate, the candidate also boosted the conspiracy theory on X in a post calling the theory “basic immigration policy for Democrats.”

The once-fringe theory has been cited as a motive by multiple mass shooters in recent years. It has been boosted not only by online far-right influencers but also mainstream right-wing figures like Tucker Carlson, who pushed the great replacement theory hundreds of times on his former Fox News show.

The great replacement theory has also been used across Europe to justify the rise of authoritarian regimes, such as that of Viktor Orbán in Hungary. It was recently cited as an excuse for the violent riots that engulfed Ireland’s capital last month.

Trawling through busy retail stores seeking gifts is a daunting task. Shopping online can be just as time-consuming, and you may run into delivery delays. Even if you successfully secure a haul of presents, many will wind up in closets or charity stores. It’s time to try an online gift. Digital presents and online gift cards are easier. Shop from your comfy sofa or cozy bed—no need for gift-wrapping or shipping. We have a virtual smorgasbord of delicious digital gift ideas for you.

You might also be interested in the Best Subscription Boxes for Gifting, the Best Gift Subscriptions for Kids, or one of our many other gift guides.

Updated December 2023: We’ve added new entries in several sections, including eGift Cards, Food, and Movies, and updated services to reflect latest changes and prices.

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Photograph: Amazon

They may not be all that imaginative, but electronic gift cards let your loved ones choose what they actually want, and it’s never disappointing to receive one (assuming it’s at a place you like). Gift cards are everywhere—you can also look beyond the retail giants to find highly rated independent stores near your giftee.

There’s nothing quite like losing yourself in a book. You might not be able to transport your loved ones into their favorite stories, but you can help them spruce up their cozy reading corner. If there’s anything we’ve learned from #BookTok, it’s that there are tons of accessories to upgrade those reading sessions. If someone on your gift list is rather bookish, you’re in luck. We’ve put together our favorite gifts for book lovers, and we’ve tested every one of these gadgets.

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If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more.

E-Readers

We love physical books, but even the most paperback-obsessed among us can appreciate the ease of a good e-reader. If your giftee flies through books or needs to have a read with them at all times, they may like one too. These devices are small and light, give you access to virtually any book you want to read at any time, and even let you check out free library books instantly. We also like that they’re isolated from your other apps and social media, creating a distraction-free environment.

Best Overall

The Kindle Paperwhite is our favorite e-reader. It is easy to set up and download books directly from Amazon or your local library via Overdrive. Both the standard Paperwhite and Signature editions (8/10, WIRED Recommends) are waterproof, with adjustable warm lighting. The latter gets 32 gigs of storage over 8 GB, its lighting can automatically adjust to your surroundings, and it can be charged wirelessly.

For kids, consider the Paperwhite Kids for $170 or the base model Kindle Kids for $120. Both come with a case, a year of Amazon Kids+, and a two-year worry-free warranty. The Paperwhite is waterproof, but the cheaper one isn’t. There are a few other Kindles available, so read our Best Kindles guide if you want to learn more. Sick of Amazon’s ecosystem? Consider the Kobo below.

Runner-Up

Kindles have the best interface, but there are good Kindle alternatives, including the Kobo Libra 2. It’s waterproof and has physical page-turn buttons—a feature I think should be included on every e-reader. There are 32 gigabytes of storage to fill, which shouldn’t be hard, since Kobo’s library is large and its prices are similar, if not an exact match, to Amazon’s. Its Overdrive integration makes it easy to check out library books too.

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E-Reader Accessories

There are a few accessories you may want to add, whether you’re giving an e-reader or your giftee already has one they love.

A Sleeve

This beautiful sleeve is a great gift for anyone who already has an e-reader (and for the mystical among us). E-readers are pretty sturdy, but this keeps it safe while bouncing around in a bag. It fits the Kindle Paperwhite and Kobo Libra, and the product page lists other compatible devices. There are larger sleeves for physical books too. The Quirky Cup Collective is a small business in Australia, so you’ll have to account for shipping time before the holidays. We have some regular case recommendations too.

A Hand Strap

Hand cramps always hit when the story is just getting good. They can happen with books, but some e-readers have thin bezels that only leave a small space for your hands to rest. Strapsicles eliminate that issue. Each pack comes with two soft silicone straps, and you can attach one or both. One is angled for easily slipping your right hand through, and the other is angled for the left. Your hand just cradles the device—no more cramps—and the straps also reduce accidental drops.

It’s also worth considering PopSockets. Yes, they were originally built for smartphones, but they also work perfectly for e-readers. There are tons of cute ones, so there’s something for everyone you’re buying for, whether they like Baby Yoda, tarot, or Disney. I prefer the Strapsicle, as the PopSocket can hurt my fingers after long periods of use.

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Noise-Canceling Headphones

There’s nothing worse than constant distractions when you’re trying to dive into a book. We highly recommend a pair of noise-canceling headphones or earbuds to keep noise at bay.

Best Overall

The AirPods Max are pricey (8/10, WIRED Recommends), but we’ve crowned them The Absolute Best in our Best Noise-Canceling Headphones guide. They pack excellent sound with great build quality, stellar noise reduction, and seamless connectivity. They’re a good choice for folks who are already locked into the Apple ecosystem, especially if they tend to read in noisy environments, like a coffee shop or the subway.

If your giftee prefers earbuds, you can opt for the AirPods Pro with USB-C ($238). They pack top-of-the-line noise-canceling and call quality, a new IP54 rating, and a case with a USB-C port.

Runner-Up

If you’re looking for over-the-ear headphones with a more discrete aesthetic, Sony’s WH-1000XM5 headphones (9/10, WIRED Recommends) are an excellent alternative. They offer some of the best noise cancellation for the money, good battery life, and better sound and mic quality than their predecessors.

Best on a Budget

These are our favorite noise-canceling headphones under $100. The 40-mm silk diaphragm drivers produce pretty good sound, considering the low price, and you still get active noise-canceling tech that decently quietens the outside world. There’s an impressive 40-hour playtime to boot. It’s important to be careful with these, though, as the plastic headband is a bit fragile.

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For Tea and Coffee Lovers

Whether your bookworm’s preferred source of caffeine is coffee or tea, a great tea kettle or coffee machine can make all the difference.

An Electric Kettle

After a long workday, there’s nothing I look forward to more than reading a book on the couch with a warm cup of tea. I’ve been using the One-Touch Electric Kettle to help me get there. The insulated, double-walled body prevents accidental burns, the four preset programs take the guesswork out of boiling the perfect cup of tea or coffee (you can also use the plus and minus buttons to set a specific temperature), and the touch-activated display only appears when the kettle is in use—giving it a sleek look. It comes in fun colors and is quite reasonably priced. Read our Best Electric Kettles guide for other options.

A Coffee Maker

If you prefer coffee to tea, Keurig’s K-Mini is a great, affordable coffee maker. At under 5 inches wide, it’s also super slim and compact. With a one-cup reservoir, you’ll have to refill it whenever you want to make a fresh cup of coffee. But the space it saves up on your countertop can’t be beat. We’ve got more coffee maker recommendations right here.

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Water Bottles and Mugs

You need to stay hydrated to get through long reading sessions. We have a full guide on our favorite water bottles, but if the reader in your life is on #booktok, there are a few viral bottles they’re probably eyeing. Pair one with a nice bag and another accessory for a DIY goodie bag.

I’ve always been dependent on an emotional support water bottle, but none ever held that title for long. Owala’s FreeSip (9/10, WIRED Recommends), on the other hand, is my perfect companion— discovered via TikTok—I already bought a second one so that I always have a clean bottle available. The insulated stainless steel keeps water cold all day, and I love that you can sip from the straw or chug without having to do anything to switch. It closes and locks tightly so it won’t spill in a bag.

The follow-up version of Stanley’s viral tumbler comes with an ergonomic handle, a splash-resistant lid, and an array of new color options. I keep mine by my side throughout the day, but especially when I’m on the couch reading (I know I’ll feel too cozy to get up and grab a glass of water). It keeps my drink cold for hours, and the straw makes it convenient to sip on.

A Great Mug

You can never have too many mugs. We especially love this one from East Fork. It’s made from sturdy ceramic, and the gently sloped grip is large enough for most hands. It feels balanced and smooth when you pick it up. It also comes in a variety of colors, like Panna Cotta, Amaro, and Morel.

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A Cute Tote

Everyone needs a really good bag. Your book-toting friend, specifically, needs one that can transport everything necessary for a solid reading sesh. Baggu’s Duck Bag can fit it all, including a water bottle and some snacks. There are a few different prints and colors (we like the embroidered flowers) with or without a zipper closure, and it has an adjustable strap so it can be used as a crossbody bag or a standard tote. Plus it’s made from machine-washable recycled cotton canvas.

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Blankets, Robes, and Slippers

Reading is best when you’re perfectly comfortable and undisturbed. Weighted blankets, robes, and slippers add warmth and relaxation to any reading spot.

Best Overall

Bearaby blankets have a pretty, open-knit design that looks classy but also lets air circulate so you won’t heat up underneath. There are a few options, including a smaller, lighter one for kids, but this Tree Napper is made with biodegradable Tencel fiber. It’s available in 15, 20, and 25 pounds.

A Budget Blanket

Bearaby blankets are beautiful, but they’re quite pricey. The 15-pound Basics by Gravity blanket is an affordable option that doesn’t sacrifice comfort or durability. There are covers available too. Gravity put weighted blankets on the map, and the rest of its lineup is as pricey as the competition, so I appreciate this cheaper offering.

A Comfy Robe

Book lovers may appreciate a cozy robe to lounge in while they read. This one from Brooklinen is a classic robe with a soft towel-like feel that’s nice after a shower or for simply relaxing. If you buy directly from Brooklinen’s site, you’ll see more color options, and there are often limited edition colors and patterns. If your giftee is more of a Barbie girl, the Barefoot Dreams Barbie robe ($168) is one of the softest things I’ve ever put on my body.

Cozy Socks

My feet are always cold. No matter the season, I always wear socks at home. They’re lighter than slippers and cover my feet entirely. But as someone who constantly falls behind on laundry, I run out of clean pairs often. These fleece pull-on slippers from Target have been a game changer. You wear them like socks, but they have grips on the bottom like slippers. I own multiple pairs that I keep in various locations, including my apartment, my partner’s apartment, and my parent’s house. That way, I always have a pair to slip my freezing feet into.

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Book Subscription Services

Buying a book for someone can be hard if you’re not sure what they’re into or what they’ve already read. But covering a few months of a subscription is the gift that gives over and over again.

If They Read on a Phone

If you’re buying a Kindle or a Kobo (or your giftee already has one), go with the subscription service from each of those companies—Kindle Unlimited for $12 a month or Kobo Plus for $8 a month. But if your giftee reads on an Android or iOS device, Everand (formerly known as Scribd) is our favorite ebook subscription. For $12 a month, your giftee will get access to a large library with titles across genres, from current best sellers to classics and even magazines.

If They Wish They Had Time to Read

As a pop culture fanatic, I find it far more enjoyable to listen to the audiobook versions of celebrity memoirs because many are narrated by the celebrities themselves. I’ve been using Audible a lot lately just for that experience, but the app also offers options across all genres. It’s an excellent gift for those who simply don’t have time to sit down and read as much as they’d like. I typically listen to audiobooks when I’m doing the dishes, folding laundry, running errands, or driving. Since I do those things a lot throughout the week, I’ve been flying through books over the past few months.

If They Need a Physical Book

Book of the Month is a subscription for the reader who loves physical books. Every month, there are five to seven titles to choose from that ship right to their door (they can skip months if nothing catches their eye). It costs $17, but there is typically a promotion to get the first box for $5, plus there are specific gift options.

For Book Collectors

I tend to add books to my reading list after seeing recommendations via TikTok, magazines, or texts from friends. But why not gift your favorite book lover a book directly from their favorite author? WIRED editor Adrienne So has subscribed for years (on and off) to Parnassus Signed First Editions, from novelist Ann Patchett’s store in Nashville, Tennessee.

The books are mainly literary fiction, with occasional nonfiction. Every pick has been an absolute banger, with a special emphasis on books by women and people of color. She’s gotten everything from Walter Isaacson’s Leonardo da Vinci to Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s Woman of Light. If you don’t want to get charged per month for a gift, you can also prepay (they will probably pick it up later for themselves).

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A Library Card

Not every gift needs to cost you money, and a library card opens up a world of opportunities for kids. I vividly remember trips to the library when I was younger that included checking out books my school librarian told me I couldn’t read. If you have a child who hasn’t explored your local public library yet, or they’re ready to jump from the kids section to young adult, consider signing them up for a card. You usually need a proof of address.

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A Reading Journal

I am constantly buying new books, even though I already own stacks I haven’t read yet. It got to a point where I couldn’t keep track of which books I already owned and which ones I wanted to buy. This reading journal from Papier has helped me out with just that. Inside, you’ll find multiple sections, including a Wish List (to write down books you want to buy), a Book Tracker (for books you’ve borrowed and lent), journaling prompts to reflect on books you’ve read, and more.

The journal also comes in a variety of fun (and durable) hardcovers and even lets you personalize them. I went with the Minhwa cover and had my full name printed in a pink font that looks super cute. It’s compact enough that your giftee can throw it in their purse or tote so it’s always on hand to jot notes down.

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More Great Accessories

• Post-it Page Markers for $6: If your giftee loves to highlight passages or take notes while reading, these page markers make annotating easier. They’re great as a stocking stuffer or an add-on to a book-themed gift.
• Conscious Step Socks That Give Books for $16: Conscious Step donates items for every sale of its socks. There are ones that help save cats and dogs or conserve rainforests, among a bunch of other great causes. In partnership with Room to Read, these get books into the hands of kids.
• Gloucusent LED Neck Reading Light for $22: Since this reading light wraps around your neck, it looks a little silly. But it’s a great option for those looking for a hands-free alternative to clip-on reading lights. It’s adjustable and lightweight, making it super comfortable to wear. It also comes with three color temperature modes (yellow, warm white, and cool white) and six brightness settings.
• Dabney Lee Bookmarks (Set of 3) for $8: I (Brenda) have a bad habit of misplacing my bookmarks. I stumbled upon these at Target when I was looking for a cheap set that looked nice but wasn’t made out of paper or plastic. These faux-leather tassel bookmarks are pretty, fairly durable, and not corny. You get a set of three for under $10, so your giftee won’t feel too bad if they accidentally lose one.

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Boxed Sets

Here are a couple of boxed sets we like that make great gifts.

A Coming-of-Age Trilogy

Unlike most fans of The Summer I Turned Pretty, who grew up reading the books, I discovered the series after watching the first season of the TV adaptation last year. In a desperate need to know what happened after the season ended on a cliffhanger, I bought all three books and devoured them in a few months (quick for me). It’s an easy, feel-good read for anyone looking to escape the dreary real world for a sweet coming-of-age story. This tote from The Summer I Turned Pretty is a great add-on if your giftee is a fan of the books and TV show. Unfortunately, it’s out of stock as of publication, so you may need to check back.

Great for Kids

I still remember exactly where I was (Sam’s Club) when I discovered my first Judy Blume book (Double Fudge). From there, the obsession grew. Her books have held up, creating generations of readers. Despite how much the world has changed, the themes she touches on are ever-present. If you want to introduce your kid to her, there are several boxed sets available for elementary schoolers and teenagers. They make good gifts for adult fans too, so we can take a trip back to when times were simpler.

Mary Yap has spent the last year and a half trying to get farmers to fall in love with basalt. The volcanic rock is chock full of nutrients, captured as its crystal structure forms from cooling magma, and can make soil less acidic. In that way it’s like limestone, which farmers often use to improve their soil. It’s a little more finicky to apply, and certainly less familiar. But basalt also comes with an important side benefit: It can naturally capture carbon from the atmosphere.

Yap’s pitch is part of a decades-long effort to scale up that natural weathering process and prove that it can lock carbon away for long enough to make a different to the climate. “The bottleneck is getting farmers to want to do this,” Yap says.

On Thursday, Yap’s young startup, Lithos Carbon, got a $57.1 million boost for its quest to turn basalt dust into a viable climate solution. It came from Frontier, a benefit corporation backed by a consortium of companies aiming to finance promising approaches to carbon dioxide removal, or CDR. Lithos says it will use the funds to soak up 154,000 tons of CO₂ by 2028, by sprinkling basalt dust on thousands of acres of US farmland. The average US car emits about 4 tons of CO₂ each year.

The carbon removal purchase is the largest yet by Frontier, which was formed last year with nearly $1 billion from its tech-dominated members. Many of those companies, which include Meta, Alphabet, and payments processor Stripe, which owns Frontier, have made climate pledges that require not only reducing the emissions from their operations and supply chains but also “negative emissions”—sucking up carbon from the atmosphere to cancel out other emissions.

That accounting trick has been easier to prove out on paper than in practice. Many companies would have once turned to buying carbon offsets from activities like protecting forests that would otherwise be felled. But some have been trying to move away from those scandal-plagued and often short-lived approaches and into more durable techniques for carbon removal.

The current options for companies seeking negative emissions are limited. Frontier’s purchases are essentially down payments on ideas that are still in their infancy—generally too hard to verify or too expensive, or both, to attract a significant customer base. “What we’re trying to evaluate the field on is whether it’s on the trajectory to get to climate-relevant scale,” says Nan Ransohoff, who leads Frontier and also climate work at Stripe. The group starts with small “pre-purchases” meant to help promising startups, and then moves on to “offtake” agreements for larger amounts of carbon that its members can count toward their emissions goals.

The Lithos purchase is one of those larger deals. It prices carbon removals at $370 per ton, about a quarter of which will pay for field monitoring and modeling to verify carbon is being sequestered away from the atmosphere for the long term. Ransohoff says that Frontier believes Lithos is on a path to getting to its goal of seeing business remove CO₂ for less than $100 per ton, and at a rate of at least a half a billion tons per year.

‘Most Promising’ Approach

Lithos, founded in 2022, is developing a technology called enhanced rock weathering. It involves spreading a fine dust of basalt across fields before planting. As the rock further weathers from rainfall, it reacts with CO₂ in the air. That forms bicarbonate, which locks away the carbon by combining it with hydrogen and oxygen atoms. Ultimately, the compound is washed into the ocean, where the carbon should stay put.

The strategy has the benefit of piggy-backing on things that humans already do, Yap says. That’s in contrast with techniques like direct air capture, which involves building industrial plants that suck out carbon from the atmosphere. It’s easy to measure carbon removed that way—it’s all captured there onsite—but critics say it will be difficult to scale up because removing enough carbon to make a difference will require thousands of dedicate, resource-intensive facilities.

Digital health company Celero Systems is developing an electronic pill that can measure heart rate, breathing rate, and core temperature—from inside the human stomach. As a first step, the company envisions people with ongoing conditions using the digital capsule to monitor their vital signs at home. But in the future, they hope to use it as a kind of internal alarm system for drug-related overdoses.

In a small clinical trial published in November, the company tested the device on people with sleep apnea, a disorder in which breathing occasionally stops and starts at night. To get a proper diagnosis, people often need to spend the night in a hospital, where they get covered in electrodes that measure their heart rate, breathing, muscle twitches, and brain activity: a comprehensive evaluation called polysomnography. This is a recipe for a crappy night’s sleep, whether you have apnea or not.

Patients can instead opt for an at-home test that involves wearing a breathing monitor on their finger overnight. But this can still cost hundreds of dollars, and it’s not always accurate. These wearables can’t measure respiration directly, just variations in heart rate presumably caused by breathing. But a pill inside the stomach can’t fall off, and it can measure lung movements internally.

Celero’s monitoring pill isn’t really a “pill” in the traditional sense—it’s a biocompatible plastic capsule, roughly the size of a big multivitamin, stuffed with tiny sensors, a microprocessor, a radio antenna, and batteries. Prior to working at Celero Systems, CEO Ben Pless primarily worked with medical implants, including one of the first implantable defibrillators. But ingestible devices, or digital pills, always intrigued him because, he says, “you could get inside the body without surgery.” Ingestibles offer many of the same benefits of implantables—they’re unobtrusive and you can’t forget to wear them—“except you implant it with a glass of water rather than a surgeon,” he says.

The capsule remains intact throughout its digestive system journey, keeping all of its electronics safely contained until it winds up in the toilet a couple of days later. Meanwhile, all the measurements are wirelessly transmitted to a laptop, where a researcher, doctor, or even the patient can access them. As far as Pless knows, Celero’s ingestible device is the first to monitor cardiac and respiratory activity in humans.

For the study, 10 sleep apnea patients at West Virginia University (WVU) Medicine Sleep Evaluation Center swallowed the pill prior to their regularly scheduled sleep studies so researchers could see how the pill’s measurements compared to a polysomnogram, the current gold standard. It was nearly as accurate, only off by about one breath per minute—more than capable of detecting respiratory depression. No one reported any side effects or discomfort, and post-study scans confirmed that all of the pills were safely passed within a few days.

When an Android user sends a text message to an iPhone user, their chat bubble shows up in iOS shaded green rather than iMessage’s default blue. This color coding signals to the iPhone user that the incoming text is arriving from outside the Apple ecosystem. But the divide goes beyond simple aesthetics. Photos and videos shared between the two mobile platforms don’t come through at full resolution. Neither do rich interactions like read receipts, typing indicators, and tapbacks. Group chats between the platforms are a total mess, filled with dropped messages and hurt feelings. A new app aims to bridge that blue-green bubble gap and make texting more seamless—and more secure with full encryption. It even turns Android texts blue! It’s what we’ve always wanted … right?

This week on Gadget Lab, we talk about Beeper Mini, the app trying to make our text conversations easier. WIRED features editor Jason Kehe joins us to campaign against the trend of interoperability on our phones. As Jason sees it, these friction-free communication mechanisms are causing us to slip into bad habits, become more isolated, and feel less inclined to put down our phones and have a real experience.

Show Notes

Read Lauren’s story about the new Beeper app and the teenage coder who helped make it work. Read more of Jason’s various other controversial opinions.

Recommendations

Jason recommends piracy, and also a few works about pirates like the show Our Flag Means Death and the book Under the Black Flag by David Cordingly. Lauren recommends the new BlackBerry movie. Mike recommends pizzelle Italian cookies. Buy ‘em or make ‘em.

Jason Kehe can be found on social media @jkehe. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

How to Listen

You can always listen to this week’s podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here’s how:

If you’re on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts, and search for Gadget Lab. If you use Android, you can find us in the Google Podcasts app just by tapping here. We’re on Spotify too. And in case you really need it, here’s the RSS feed.

When I was a child, shuttling back and forth between the United States and summers with relatives in the Philippines, I carried two months’ worth of clothes in a small duffel so that I could use my checked suitcase to bring gifts back and forth across the Pacific. Back then, being a light packer meant traveling with only a carry-on. If you had told me that even overhead bin space would someday be at a steep premium, I’m not sure I would’ve believed you.

That was a long time ago, when airlines gave you complimentary fresh baguettes with tongs and little bottles of wine (not to children) on international flights. Now many affordable airlines, including Spirit and Allegiant, charge you extra even for carry-ons. In addition to saving you money, traveling with only a personal item means that you’re not one of those clowns trying to rush the gate to make sure you get overhead bin space.

The perfect “personal item” is a bag that’s sturdy and organized enough to carry everything you need for several days, but small enough to fit underneath the seat in front of you. After five years of development, the Trinity is one of Tom Bihn’s leading entrants in this category. As a convertible briefcase, it’s not that flexible, but if you travel frequently for work, it’s the perfect choice.

Hardest-Wearing Wares

Photograph: Tom Bihn

There are a few reasons why Tom Bihn consistently stays at the top of our Best Laptop Backpacks guide. There are bags that are cheaper, more stylish, or have more features, but none of them are made entirely in America, in one 16,000-square-foot location. It’s been a family-owned company for several decades, and direct oversight allows it to meet pretty exacting standards when it comes to manufacturing.

The Trinity is made from a heavy, abrasion-resistant 630-denier ballistic nylon, which is the same as my favorite backpack, the Synik. Just for fun, I once filled my Synik with cast-iron gym weights and dragged it around a parking lot, trying to tear through the fabric. It didn’t work. Rather than regular, small molded zippers—i.e., a zipper with teeth—the exterior zippers are coil zippers, like a Slinky. They have a gauge that’s about three times as big as any you might see in a regular daypack and are huge and run incredibly smoothly. You can stuff whatever you want in a compartment and the zipper is more likely to chop your finger off than get jammed.

The Trinity is called the Trinity because it has three main compartments and three ways to carry it. Two compartments open clamshell-style on either side, cushioning a slim work compartment with a laptop sleeve inside it. You can carry it as a backpack with shoulder straps; with an included shoulder strap at two attachment points; or with two padded grab handles, briefcase-style. Tom Bihn does suggest that if you want to carry it as a shoulder back, that you upgrade to the padded Absolute Shoulder Strap ($33), which is not included.

The second reason that people buy Tom Bihn bags is that the organization is thorough and completely unique to them, to the point where you can spend hours fiddling with different straps, O-rings, and pockets to find out the best way for you to use each one. Depending on your personality, this is either a huge plus or a very big minus. I did ask Tom Bihn what the first main compartment was for. The first main compartment has an optional fabric divider. It can zip along the interior of the compartment to divide it into two and doubles as a sleeve for a water bottle if you want to use this compartment as a gym bag.

The front of the bag also has three pockets, which work best for me when I’m carrying it as a briefcase. The main compartment on the front has the requisite Tom Bihn keychain lanyard, pen pockets, and small lip balm/headphone pockets. I miss these whenever I’m carrying a bag that doesn’t have them. It also has a luggage pass-through which fits on the handle of my Osprey roller bag. But come now, the point of this bag is that you’re not supposed to need a roller bag .

Small But Strong

Photograph: Tom Bihn

At 21 liters, this bag has a relatively modest capacity. When carried as a backpack, it’s 16 inches tall and 11.4 inches deep when full. On my 6’4″ colleague Julian Chokkattu, it looks like a normal-size bag, but I’m 5’2″. When I met my friend at a coffee shop carrying it, she remarked that it looked like I was lugging my entire life through the streets of San Francisco.

The finding suggests that far more fire ice is vulnerable to climate-induced melt than scientists realized, and it could be a significant source of planet-warming gas in the future. “It’s a very, very, very large source of carbon,” says Davies. “What we’re showing is there are routes for that carbon to be released that we hadn’t appreciated.”

These particular pockmarks formed at a depth of 330 meters. But before Davies’ team dug into the data, no one was looking for melting fire ice at this location, because it’s landward of where hydrate is stable in today’s climate, and therefore not a region of interest. At these relatively shallow depths, methane hydrate stops forming in the sediment, where temperatures are too high and pressure is too low.

“Everyone has been looking at a particular zone—around 450 to 750 meters below water depth—where hydrates are particularly vulnerable to melting,” says Davies. Hydrate is considered stable below 750 meters, where it is not likely to release methane into the ocean during climatic warming.

But things don’t always work out exactly as expected. Temperatures can actually increase deeper in the ocean, closer to the heat of the Earth itself. “Every 100 meters, it will get a bit warmer,” says Davies. “Although the pressure is increasing, the temperature is also increasing. They cross each other. And at that point is where hydrate goes from being stable to unstable.”

Davies thinks that when the oceans warmed in the past million years, fire ice that was very deep, perhaps several hundred meters below the seabed, at water depths around 1 to 2 kilometers, also warmed, destabilized—and then released gas that started to migrate upslope. As the methane traveled under the seafloor from deeper regions, it began to leak at around the 330 meter mark. “The ‘Eureka!’ moment was finding these giant craters. Due to interglacials—warm periods over the last million years—every time it melted, gas was then moving long distances up the shelf and venting,” says Davies. “I thought: Wow, [pockmarks are] forming due to hydrate dissociation in the deep water.”

Depth is an extremely important consideration when it comes to methane gas and climate, because it helps contain some of the damage. In the deepest parts of the ocean, fire ice might dissociate and burp up methane, but microbes will destroy the gas before it can reach the surface. Methane also readily dissolves in the seawater—which, yes, will result in its acidification, but at least it won’t reach the atmosphere. (Due to the same mechanics, higher carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere acidify the ocean.)

The biggest fight of the generative AI revolution is headed to the courtroom—and no, it’s not about the latest boardroom drama at OpenAI. Book authors, artists, and coders are challenging the practice of teaching AI models to replicate their skills using their own work as a training manual.

The debate centers on the billions of works underpinning the impressive wordsmithery of tools like ChatGPT, the coding prowess of Github’s Copilot, and artistic flair of image generators like that of startup Midjourney. Most of the works used to train the underlying algorithms were created by people, and many of them are protected by copyright.

AI builders have largely assumed that using copyrighted material as training data is perfectly legal under the umbrella of “fair use”—after all, they’re only borrowing the work to extract statistical signals from it, not trying to pass it off as their own. But as image generators and other tools have proven able to impressively mimic works in their training data, and the scale and value of training data has become clear, creators are increasingly crying foul.

At LiveWIRED in San Francisco, the 30th anniversary event for WIRED magazine, two leaders of that nascent resistance sparred with a defender of the rights of AI companies to develop the technology unencumbered. Did they believe AI training is fair use? “The answer is no, I do not,” said Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild, which represents book authors and is suing both OpenAI and its primary backer, Microsoft, for violating the copyright of its members.

From left to right: WIRED senior writer Kate Knibbs discussed creators’ rights and AI with Mike Masnick, Mary Rasenberger, and Matthew Butterick at LiveWIRED in San Francisco,.

Photograph: Aldo Chacon

Existential Risk

At the core of the Authors Guild’s complaint is that OpenAI and others’ use of their material ultimately produces competing work when users ask a chatbot to spit out a poem or image. “This is a highly commercial use, and the harm is very clear,” Rasenberger said. “It could really destroy the profession of writing. That’s why we’re in this case.” The Authors Guild, which is building a tool that will help generative AI companies pay to license its members’ works, believes there can be perfectly ethical ways to train AI. “It’s very simple: get permission,” she said. In most cases, permission will come for a fee.

Mike Masnick, CEO of the Techdirt blog and also the Copia Institute, a tech policy think tank, has a different view. “I’m going to say the opposite of everything Mary just said,” he said. Generative AI is fair use, he argued, noting the similarities of the recent legal disputes with past lawsuits, some involving the Author’s Guild, in which indexing creative works so that search engines could efficiently find them survived challenges.

A win for artist groups would not necessarily be of much help to individual writers, Masnick added, calling the very concept of copyright a scheme that was intended to enrich publishers, rather than protect artists. He referenced what he called a “corrupt” system of music licensing that sends little value to its creators.

While any future courtroom verdicts will likely depend on legal arguments over fair use, Matthew Butterick, a lawyer who has filed a number of lawsuits against generative AI companies, says the debate is really about tech companies that are trying to accrue more power—and hold onto it. “They’re not competing to see who can be the richest anymore; they’re competing to be the most powerful,” he said. “What they don’t want is for people with copyrights to have a veto over what they want to do.”

Masnick responded that he was also concerned about who gains power from AI, arguing that requiring tech companies to pay artists would further entrench the largest AI players by making it too expensive for insurgents to train their systems.

Rasenberger scoffed at the suggestion of a balance of power between tech players and the authors she represents, comparing the $20,000 per year average earnings for full-time authors to the recent $90 billion valuation of OpenAI. “They’ve got the money. The artist community does not,” she said.