Hacker News with Generative AI: Consumer Technology

Now Trump's import tariffs could raise the cost of a laptop for Americans by 68% (theregister.com)
The Consumer Technology Association has issued some fresh predictions of how much more Americans may have to pay for their hardware if Donald Trump's hard-line import tariffs are enacted.
What a world to live in, Anti Consumer is trend and Pro consumer is niche (ycombinator.com)
Consumer tech companies are following the trends where they can get more and more locked down and less to consumers because some fruit company is doing it and the companies which are trying to give more open devices are considered as niche.
Can dumb 'smart' TVs be the EU's next target, please? (thenational.scot)
IT was packaged by the European Commission as a belated Christmas gift – new regulations that mean all new small and medium-sized electronic devices sold in the EU will use the same charging cable.
The USB-C charging mandate arrives in the EU – here's what that means (theverge.com)
From December 28th, a large percentage of the gadgets bought inside the EU are required to charge via USB-C.
AI PC revolution appears DOA – AI PCs and smartphones is a bust, analyst says (tomshardware.com)
Startup will brick $800 emotional support robot for kids without refunds (arstechnica.com)
Startup Embodied is closing down, and its product, an $800 robot for kids ages 5 to 10, will soon be bricked.
Forced to upgrade (bearblog.dev)
I've been happily using an iPhone 8 for the last 7 years. It has been, and still is, a perfect smartphone. I've never bumped up against the limitations of the hardware (gaming on a phone is a bit of a mystery to me), and all of my photos and videos are synced to the cloud, so I've never even run out of the 64gb of storage space.
Air fryer might be spying on you (techradar.com)
iRobot lays off another 105 employees (techcrunch.com)
Roomba maker iRobot is laying off 105 employees — about 16% of the company’s workforce, per an SEC filing — saying the cuts are part of an “operational restructuring plan.”
The Alexa Skills revolution that wasn't (theverge.com)
The first Amazon Echo, all the way back in 2014, was pitched as a device for a few simple things: playing music, asking basic questions, getting the weather.
Ask HN: How can the elderly tell if the AirPods Pro 2 can correct their hearing? (ycombinator.com)
Do they have to buy it first so they can do the hearing test to determine if it is strong enough to correct their hearing?
ABC News hacks into popular robot vacuum, watches owner through camera (abc.net.au)
The largest home robotics company in the world has failed to fix security issues with its robot vacuums despite being warned about them last year.
HP injects AI into its printers (ghacks.net)
HP jumped on the AI bandwagon today when it announced Print AI for its printers. Is it a ploy to extract even more money from unsuspecting customers, or something truly useful?
Complaints about crashing 13th,14th Gen Intel CPUs now have data to back them up (theverge.com)
Starlink Mini is now available for anyone in the US to roam (theverge.com)
Apple Users Are Keeping Their Devices for Longer as Upgrades Slow (macrumors.com)
Amazon is bricking $2,350 Astro robots 10 months after release (arstechnica.com)
Roku update turns on hated motion-smoothing feature, with no off switch (boingboing.net)
"Unacceptable": Spotify bricking Car Thing devices in Dec. without refunds (arstechnica.com)
Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued (spotify.com)
Apple says the majority of Mac users also own an iPad (9to5mac.com)
Home Assistant has a new foundation and a goal to become a consumer brand (arstechnica.com)
Show HN: I made a tool to find the best time to buy your new phone (theupgraderadar.com)
Apple argues in favor of selling Macs with only 8GB of RAM (9to5mac.com)
Apple to expand repair options with support for used genuine parts (apple.com)