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The release of Mohammad Abedini follows Iran's recent freeing of Italian journalist Cecilia Sala, sparking speculation that Sala may have been a bargaining chip.

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From whitening gel to mouthwash and strips, these teeth whitening products will brighten your smile.

Anyone who has attended the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) over recent years will have spotted that major automotive players have been muscling in on consumer tech turf. Autonomous driving, AI-powered voice assistants and masses of high-definition touchscreen displays have been employed to snare column inches and take over TikTok feeds.

This year was no different, with BMW choosing the platform to introduce the latest generation of its iconic iDrive infotainment system that, unsurprisingly, now involves a frankly terrifying amount of screen real estate.

Due to arrive in the upcoming BMW Neue Klasse X electric SUV, with the system slated to roll out to all new BMW models in the near future, the Panoramic iDrive offering features a 3D head-up display in front of the driver, a mammoth 17.9-inch central touchscreen and, to top it all off, a separate head-up display that spans the entire width of the windshield.

As is the way with most infotainment systems now, the central touchscreen is customizable, in so much as drivers can pin their most-used apps and key information to the home screen. Judging by imagery and video released by BMW, there’s at least three tiles that are available to constantly display information.

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What’s more, the epic Panoramic Vision head-up display (HUD) offers space for up to six fully customizable widgets, while the three directly in front of the driver are reserved for key vehicle information, such as speed and remaining battery charge.

Already, we are up to 12 points of information, and that is before we even consider the third and final head-up display that’s projected onto the windscreen in front of the driver, which will show enormous, animated turn-by-turn directions when BMW’s navigation is in use.

Some of the examples BMW cites when it comes to the tiles that can be pinned to its Panoramic Vision HUD are a weather app and a compass. Now call me old fashioned, but can’t you just look out of the window to see what the weather is doing and when was the last time you used a compass while driving? It’s 2025, not 1925.

Finally, there has been no word on how BMW’s flashy Panoramic Display and slightly angled central touchscreen will interact with the likes of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto – two systems that the majority of the driving public are perfectly happy with.

An industry issue

(Image credit: Harman)

To only berate BMW would be wrong, because Hyundai Mobis also revealed that it has created the world’s first full-windshield holographic display, which beams a glut of information across the entire width of a windshield.

According to the Korean automotive supplier, its system uses a specialized film that’s embedded with a Holographic Optical Element (HOE), which utilizes the "principle of light diffraction to project images and videos directly to the viewer’s eyes". Say what?

Using a Kia EV9 as a testbed at this year’s CES, it’s easy to see this sort of technology appearing in some of the Hyundai Motor Group’s more premium products in the coming years.

Harman also debuted its home-theater-quality Ready Display, with Quantum Dot and Blue Mini LED-based local dimming technology. That’s high-end television specification, shrunk down to something that will fit in a family SUV and will likely rarely be fully appreciated.

After all, when was the last time you watched an entire Hollywood blockbuster while waiting for your EV to charge?

Killing interior design

(Image credit: Mercedes-Benz)

Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz is set to unleash its all-new CLA model onto the world soon and it comes with the promise of a ‘user-friendly MBUX Superscreen’ that, in the early concept cars at least, takes up the entire width of the cockpit.

It’s not that I’m necessarily anti-touchscreens in vehicles; I write for a tech site, after all. However, dedicating so much space to them, like Mercedes-Benz and BMW have chosen to, leaves little to no room for individual acts of interesting physical design.

Rewind a few years and car interiors all looked vastly different: it was easy to differentiate between the quirky interior flourishes of a Citroen and the more upmarket polish of an Audi, for example.

But the over-reliance on the digital space means that, without interior designers pushing for more unique physical elements, modern vehicle interiors look eerily similar, especially when powered down.

Consider the fact that many manufacturers have turned to Epic Games, which offers its Unreal Engine to produce much of the interface, and even the digital domain is becoming homogeneous.

I've noticed the interface that visualizes an operational advanced driver assistance system (ADAS), for example, is practically the same in numerous modern cars. The small digital representations of trucks, cars and motorcycles that the external cameras pick up look largely identical, no matter if you are in a Tesla or a Volvo EX90.

Of course, the notion of good design is a very personal thing, but there’s also the sticky issue of user experience. Brands (ahem, Volkswagen) have had their fingers burnt in the past, unleashing bouji, sparse interiors that might look like an LA A-lister’s apartment but prove nightmarish to use and live with.

Plastering a vehicle’s interior with screens and irritating haptic buttons typically comes at the expense of easy-to-locate physical switches that, when you are in the midst of driving (a cerebrally taxing task), are essential for distraction-free and safe motoring.

Designing for the future

(Image credit: BMW)

Right now, it feels like automotive companies are designing vehicle cockpits for a time when high levels of autonomous driving are both legal and commonplace.

I’m not simply talking about SAE Level 3, which allows drivers to 'enjoy' eyes-off driving under some fairly strict parameters (highways, speeds under 30mph etc), but Level 4 and 5, where the vehicle does the majority of the heavy lifting.

We are still some way from this technology becoming a reality, and an even larger leap from legislators creating a proper legal framework for the widespread adoption. So it begs the question, why are manufacturers choosing to offer so much potentially distracting information now?

As if to protect themselves from a potential torrent of driver distraction accusations, most modern manufacturers are also working with artificial intelligence and large language models to allow drivers and occupants to interact with their vehicles via natural speech prompts, negating the need to prod around a touchscreen or hunt for buttons.

Having a vehicle predict when you are feeling chilly with a cutting-edge suite of bio-sensing technology is a very expensive and complicated way of admitting that burying the climate control adjuster in a series of annoying sub-menus was probably a bad idea.

Listen, I understand that space-age vehicle interiors is, essentially, what technological progress looks like and I'm not suggesting we head back to the days of walnut wood trim and cigarette lighters (although wood interiors are still cool, IMHO).

But designing vehicles – that are slated for imminent release – with NASA control room-levels of interactive displays seems counterintuitive.

Until the day arrives that I can genuinely kick back and enjoy what's beaming out of those screens, I want to be able to drive a vehicle – not pilot Falcon 9.

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From playing tug of war with rope toys to fetch with plush, squeaky toys, these are the best dog toys, according to our furry friends at CNET.

From handling crises in the rail and airline industries to overseeing the distribution of billions of dollars in infrastructure funding, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has taken on a lot over the last four years.

Now, his tenure is coming to an end.

Host Scott Detrow speaks with Buttigieg about what the Biden administration accomplished, what it didn't get done, and what he's taking away from an election where voters resoundingly called for something different.

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org

Email us at considerthis@npr.org

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• Lenovo presented a 3.5-inch mock-up of an 'AI storage device', which could be a portable SSD, a NAS, or something new
• Not a product announcement, but a proof of concept
• But presence of a red ring on one of the ports may indicate that it will be a ThinkStorage product

Lenovo has unveiled a new concept device at CES called "AI Storage", which could be the company’s first AI-assisted NAS (Network Attached Storage).

The apparent prototype features a minimalist, space-efficient design with ventilation grilles on the right side for either active or passive cooling.

The 3.5-inch mock-up could be more than a traditional NAS, in that it might also function as a portable SSD, or serve an entirely new purpose, blurring the lines between storage and AI integration.

A smarter future for storage?

The concept image shows that this device will support a standard RJ45 Ethernet port accompanied by dual status LEDs. These could indicate active connectivity or possibly its association with Lenovo’s ThinkStorage branding.

A visible USB-C port should enable high-speed data transfers via USB 3.2 or Thunderbolt protocols. There's also another USB-C port marked with a distinctive red ring, presumably for power.

It's important to note that a good number of concept devices never make it to the market. Whether this device will evolve into a full-fledged NAS or will work as a versatile storage solution remains to be seen.

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In a city prone to large natural disasters, L.A. firefighters are widely considered to be among the best in the business at knocking down urban wildfires. But in the extreme conditions lately, experts say little can be done even to slow these modern fires.

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• Modular laptop vendor Framework said it will launch a RISC-V product in 2025
• RISC-V is the equivalent of Linux for hardware, open source and free
• More tech companies are adopting but it has yet to hit mainstream in a meaningful way

RISC-V, an open source ISA developed at the University of California, Berkeley in 2010, has steadily been gaining attention as a customizable alternative to proprietary ISAs like x86 and Arm.

Its license-free approach allows manufacturers to create and modify processors without restrictions, leading to adoption in various specialized applications, and this year could mark a key step toward broader consumer adoption of the architecture.

For RISC-V to truly reach the mainstream, it still needs to gain traction in the laptop market. Hong Kong–based DeepComputing introduced the first RISC-V notebook, the Roma, in 2023, followed by the DC-Roma II in 2024, which shipped with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed. While praised for its open-source flexibility, the laptop’s performance lagged behind x86 and Arm alternatives - but speaking to IEEE Spectrum, DeepComputing CEO Yuning Liang said the company's upcoming DC-Roma III will close that gap with performance comparable to the Arm Cortex-A76.

Enter Framework

Perhaps even more excitingly, DeepComputing is collaborating with Framework, a company known for its modular, repairable laptops, to create a RISC-V motherboard for the Framework Laptop 13. Nirav Patel, CEO of Framework, said, "If we look at a couple of generations down the [software] stack, we’re starting to see a line of sight to consumer-ready RISC-V in something like a laptop, or even a phone.”

According to IEEE Spectrum, "Though still intended for early adopters and developers, it will be the most accessible and polished RISC-V laptop yet, and it will ship to users with the same look and feel as the Framework laptops that use x86 chips."

Following the initial announcement in June 2024, Framework launched a product page for the RISC-V motherboard, but it remains a placeholder.

DeepComputing's site however, reveals more details, including images of the DC-Roma RISC-V Mainboard for the Framework 13 Laptop, one of which you can see at the top of the page. The board is powered by the RISC-V 64-bit quad-core CPU JH7110, and supports both Ubuntu Desktop 24.04 and Fedora 41.

RISC-V has already been embraced by a number of tech companies. Western Digital uses it for storage controllers, British startup Blueshift Memory's BlueFive processor is built on an open-source RISC-V core, the Chinese XiangShan project has developed two RISC-V designs, and Ubitium has a universal RISC-V processor that consolidates all computing workloads onto a single, affordable chip.

We will likely see more details about Framework's RISC-V Laptop 13 in the coming months, but given the current focus on developers and early adopters, along with performance limitations compared to established architectures like x86 and Arm, it seems fair to say that while this is unquestionably a huge step forward for the architecture, RISC-V isn’t ready for mainstream consumer adoption quite yet.

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Bowers & Wilkins Pi6: Two-minute review

The Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 are a more 'budget' alternative to B&W’s big flagship pair for 2024, the Bowers & Wilkins Pi8. I put budget in quotation marks, because despite undercutting their siblings, the Pi6 are still a premium pair of buds in their own right when you consider that rivals come in at almost half the price – and some of those offer hearing tests, proprietary spatial audio solutions and personalised sound profiles.

Bowers & Wilkins is a name revered for top-tier audio, even if you’re getting the company's ‘budget’ option, and that’s emphatically the case with the Pi6. As soon as you start listening to them you’ll be serenaded with a detailed soundstage, a zealous sound and smart ANC that’ll strip away any distractions.

If you're all about audio and can't quite stretch to the premium B&W Pi8, these earbuds are still a viable option. But to start with the sound quality might be getting ahead of ourselves, because you certainly won’t start there – like me, you’ll probably begin by hitting your shins on the harsh edges that B&W has left about the place. These buds have a surprising number of cut corners for earbuds that cost this much.

Sadly, I found pairing with the Pi6 a torturous and ongoing process. I realise it's one person's experience, but nonetheless I reviewed over 30 pairs of wireless headphones and earbuds last year and I'm not slouch on this. It was difficult. For me, the initial set-up was a time-consuming struggle, which I went through on multiple devices to check whether it was just my phone being problematic. And sadly, the connection wasn’t 100% reliable even once the buds were paired, because Bower & Wilkins’ app would reliably fail to recognize the buds if I put them in my ears once the app was already open.

The app doesn’t offer any scope for Spatial Audio or otoacoustic hearing profile curation, which is fair enough, but there are one or two standard quality-of-life perks missing, such as ‘find my headphones’.

Fortunately, the Pi6 are nice and light to wear, making them comfortable to wear and reliable to place in your ear. Honestly, the great audio quality here could very well offset the omission of a few personalisation perks and my connectivity issues, and this review was initially meant to have a 4.5-star score. However, near the end of the testing I was having trouble getting the Pi6 to work before leaving home, once again, and so despite the fact I was meant to be testing the Pi6 I had to leave the house with another pair of buds. And if I choose not to use the Pi6, despite the great-sounding audio, then it makes it hard to wholeheartedly recommend them to someone else.

Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 review: Price and release date

(Image credit: Future)

• Released in September 2024, after Pi8
• Costs $199 / £219 / AU$449

You can buy the Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 for $199 / £219 / AU$449, so they’re mid-range buds that act as cheaper – though not ‘cheap’ – alternatives to the Pi8.

The Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 sell for $399 / £349 / AU$599, which is a big step up, and so people who don’t need the very best and want to save a few pennies will find it a tempting option, and they are absolutely worthy of consideration.

Both earbuds were announced at the same time in August 2024. The Pi8 were put on sale straight away while the Pi6 were released in September.

Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 review: Specs Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 review: Features

(Image credit: Future)

• App doesn't offer the plethora of features others can
• Persistent connectivity issues
• Quoted battery life is 8 hours, but didn't reach that

The Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 easily takes a top-three spot in my all-time ranking of the most troublesome earbuds to pair with.

Devices just refused to recognize the Pi6. That’s plural devices – I tried to connect to a smartphone, a laptop and an iPad during testing. On all occasions, the device stalwartly refused to ‘see’ the buds via Bluetooth, and I’d have to keep turning Bluetooth on and off before the planets aligned and the device found the Pi6. Mercury must have been in retrograde or something when I was trying to connect the buds to my iPad, because I simply never managed it – not once.

When I first paired the Pi6 to my smartphone, the right bud wouldn’t work, a process which was only fixed when I went through the entire process all over again and re-paired them to my mobile. And when it did work, the connection wasn’t always reliable, with the app not always recognizing the buds and the left earbud continuing to give up the ghost from time to time. Again, it's important to note this is my personal experience (and it's very different to the one Becky Scarrott had when testing the flagship Pi8) but still, it's valid: I'm a regular TechRadar audio tester and in this particular area, the B&W Pi6 were unusually troublesome.

(Image credit: Future)

Another weak link is the battery life. Bowers & Wilkins quotes the Pi6 as having an 8-hour battery life but from my testing, it fell an hour or so short each time. Seven hours is still just above average, but the case was the real issue. The charging case is meant to provide 24 hours of listening time but I found that the power on this would be much less than that.

I’d sometimes put the earbuds in after a few days of not using them, to find that the battery had fully drained, even if it was powered up before. I’d need to charge the buds back up again before using them.

There’s a smartphone app to provide some extra controls over the buds. However, this was chock-full of adverts for things like streaming service free trials and podcasts that B&W sponsors, and so the actual features feel somewhat hidden. You can turn on ANC or ANC pass-through, play with a simple equalizer (you can increase or decrease treble or bass), turn off or on the wearer detection and customize the touch controls.

Most of these are listed under the ‘Discover More’ section of the app’s home page, as though they’re optional extras instead of the main reason you’d download said app. That’s only if you have the buds paired though and remember, several times in my testing the app wouldn’t recognize that the buds were connected.

• Features score: 3.5/5

Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 review: Design

(Image credit: Future)

• Premium-feel, compact case
• Handy touch controls
• Four color options to pick from

The Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 come in a small pebble-like charging case. It measures 6.5 x 2.9 x 5.2 cm and weighs 46g so it’s nice and small. I had no issue popping it in a trouser pocket and forgetting about it for a day. The case doesn’t seem to have an IP rating.

The buds themselves are fairly light in weight, tipping the scales at 7g each. I found the fit to be comfortable and reliable, staying in my ears during a gym session amongst other activities, but several different ear tip sizes come in the box with the Pi6.

Each bud has a sensor on the top plate that you can use to control your music. Using these took a little bit of getting used-to (to figure out where to tap and how firm to be) but after a while it became a convenient way to handle the playback of my music. Using the app you can choose for the hold options to be to change the volume, or to handle ANC and summon your voice assistant.

You can pick up the buds in four colors. I used Cloud Gray but there’s also Glacier Blue (pale blue), Storm Gray (black) and Forest Green (olive).

I mentioned that the case doesn’t have an IP rating, but the buds do: they’re certified at IP54, which is a good dust-resistant and water-resistant rating – but I hope it goes without saying that you shouldn’t submerge them in water.

• Design score: 4.5/5

Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 review: Sound quality

(Image credit: Future)

• 12mm driver, but misses the Pi8's custom one
• Hearty bass and mid, treble falls a little short
• Support for a range of codecs

Bowers and Wilkins has managed to get a 12mm dynamic driver into each of the Pi6 buds, and they support SBC, AAC, aptX Adaptive and aptX Classic codecs.

The Pi6 sound great for their price, which is just as well given the lack of a hugely meaningful equalizer to let you fix any issues. I really enjoyed listening to music with them, when the buds worked.

The buds took a zealous approach to my music, with a meaty but not overwhelming bass and full-bodied mids, and a detailed soundstage helps you appreciate these elements. For certain kinds of music, the Pi6 were some of the best buds I’ve tested in some time.

(Image credit: Future)

If there’s an Achilles’ Heel, it’s the treble, which I found to lack an extra ounce of sparkle as well as prevalence in the mix. I found myself wishing female vocals and harmonising instruments were a little more prominent, and even maxing out the treble in the equalizer only went so far towards fixing the issue.

At least for the music I listen to, however, the treble was never a huge issue, but it’s something worth flagging to prospective buyers. A few features are missing in the Pi6 that show up in the Pi8, including aptX Lossless support, an advanced DAC and bespoke drivers, but those are pretty niche features that only certain audiophile-grade fans will really need.

• Sound quality: 4.5/5

Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 review: Value

(Image credit: Future)

• Don't offer fantastic value for money
• Hunt around for sales to save

The B&W Pi6 have great audio for the price and a nice light case design, but the value proposition is knocked by the limited feature set.

I’ve tested plenty of earbuds that cost a third of the price of the Pi6 and have more impressive feature sets, more detailed equalizers and apps that don’t attack you with advertising for music services, playlists or podcasts.

You’re paying a fairly high price for the audio tech here and even non-audiophiles will enjoy the sound quality. But you can definitely find earbuds that sound almost as good for around $120 / £120 / AU$300 if you shop around. You can even find the Pi6 for a lot less in sales, despite writing this review only a few months after their release, so shop around.

• Value: 3.5/5

Should I buy the Bowers & Wilkins Pi6?

(Image credit: Future) Buy them if…

You're on a middling budget
If you're okay with spending a fair amount of money, but not loads of it, then the Pi6 might be the nice middle ground you need instead of going for expensive buds.

You need a slender carry case
Some wireless earbuds come with charging cases that you need to clear by customs, they're so big; if you want something nice and easy to tote about, then the Pi6 will be great for you.

Don’t buy them if…

You like customizing your audio
You can tweak bass and audio by a little bit, but even cheap earbuds have much more detailed equalizers (or preset options) than the Pi6 does..

You're a technophobe
If you struggle with any techy issues, the constant pairing problems of the Pi6 may well cause you to lose all your hair.

Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 review: Also consider

Bowers & Wilkins Pi8
Not an imaginative comparison, but this is the Pi6's big sibling. A higher price tag gets you better audio, some extra features and the flagship driver, but (mostly) the same design.

See our full Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 review

Sony WF-1000XM5
Sony's recent top-end earbuds cost similar amounts to the Pi6. They get you great audio, comfortable fits and a much better selection of Sony features to enjoy.

See our full Sony WF-1000XM5 review

How I tested the Bowers & Wilkins Pi6

• Tested for over three weeks
• Tested at home, in the office and at the gym

(Image credit: Future)

I tested the Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 (when they weren't testing me...) for roughly three weeks, due to the testing period falling over the Christmas break.

I've detailed lots of my testing process above; I used them alongside my phone, an iPad and a laptop, in a range of environments including my home, the office, public transport and the gym. I streamed music, played games and watched some TV too.

I've been testing gadgets for TechRadar for almost six years now, and in that time have tested a huge range of headphones and earbuds, so I'm used to troubleshooting and fixing faulty tech.

• First reviewed in January 2025

• Read TechRadar's reviews guarantee

• The AI headphones would offer real-time translation and AI-generated voice cloning
• Given the design, I expect it to be rolled out as part of the Think family
• It could be paired with Lenovo's AI-driven action assistant

At CES 2025, Lenovo showed off prototype AI-powered headphones it hopes will elevate language skills for workers everywhere.

The standout feature is the headphones' ability to provide real-time translation, enabling users to interact across different languages.

The prototype also introduced a new feature called AI-generated voice cloning, which allows the headphones to mimic a user’s voice accurately.

Advanced health features and Action Assistant

The concept also incorporates advanced health monitoring features through Lenovo Virtual Care, which combines biometric tracking with an AI-powered virtual assistant for personalized wellness insights.

These headphones could also integrate with Lenovo’s Action Assistant, a task automation concept also unveiled at CES 2025.

Powered by a large action model (LAM), Action Assistant can understand natural language instructions to perform complex workflows.

From the concept image, Lenovo’s AI headphones integrate seven key ports and buttons - including volume - on one ear.

Adjacent to this is a multi-function button, likely designated for playing or pausing media, answering calls, or activating a voice assistant.

The concept also features with a foldable microphone arm which can swing to any direction for clear audio capture.

A USB-C port should support fast charging and potentially wired connectivity. There's also a dedicated power button as well as a speaker grille that features a perforated design.

Finally, the AI headphones' design is rounded out by a padded and adjustable headband which is usually used to provide comfort during extended wear.

It's worth reiterating that Lenovo’s AI headphones are just a prototype; and pointing out that a significant number of prototypes never reach commercial availability.

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