Hazardous substances found in all headphones tested by ToxFREE project

Substances include chemicals that can cause cancer, neurodevelopmental problems and the feminisation of males

You wear them at work, you wear them at play, you wear them to relax. You may even get sweaty in them at the gym.

But an investigation into headphones has found every single pair tested contained substances hazardous to human health, including chemicals that can cause cancer, neurodevelopmental problems and the feminisation of males.

Published: February 18, 2026, 7:00 am

China’s dancing robots: how worried should we be?

Eye-catching martial arts performance at China gala had viewers and experts wondering what else humanoids can do

Dancing humanoid robots took centre stage on Monday during the annual China Media Group’s Spring Festival Gala, China’s most-watched official television broadcast. They lunged and backflipped (landing on their knees), they spun around and jumped. Not one fell over.

The display was impressive, but prompted some to wonder: if robots can now dance and perform martial arts, what else can they do?

Published: February 18, 2026, 5:19 am

The bogus four-day workweek that AI supposedly ‘frees up’

Business leaders tout AI as a path to shorter weeks and better balance. But without power, workers are unlikely to share the gains

The front-page headline in a recent Washington Post was breathless: “These companies say AI is key to their four-day workweeks.” The subhead was euphoric: “Some companies are giving workers back more time as artificial intelligence takes over more tasks.”

As the Post explained: “more companies may move toward a shortened workweek, several executives and researchers predict, as workers, especially those in younger generations, continue to push for better work-life balance.”

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now

Published: February 18, 2026, 1:00 pm

Is it smarter to have a dumb home? ‘We’ve seen clients unable to flush toilets’

Australia experienced a boom in smart-home technology at the start of the 2020s. Years on, some early adopters are experiencing buyer’s remorse

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When the smart home devices Elly Bailey was expecting in the post never showed up at her Gold Coast home, she was frustrated. As a technology reviewer, these products were crucial for her work.

When she eventually found the cause, she had to laugh. It wasn’t a sticky-fingered neighbour or a rogue delivery driver causing her to miss parcels but her smart doorbell – the very thing she’d hoped would prevent missed deliveries, and part of exactly the range of internet-connected devices she was meant to be reviewing.

Published: February 18, 2026, 2:00 pm

Finger princesses: are these the biggest villains of the chat group?

We all know one – and there’s a good chance you fall into the category yourself. Here’s how to recognise if you’re a ‘walking, talking red flag’ …

Name: Finger princess.

Age: The term circulated this month, but the behaviour has been escalating across digital communication for some time.

Published: February 18, 2026, 3:50 pm

Tech billionaires fly in for Delhi AI expo as Modi jostles to lead in south

Google, Anthropic and OpenAI bosses to mingle with global south leaders wrestling for control over technology

Silicon Valley tech billionaires will land in Delhi this week for an AI summit hosted by India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, where leaders of the global south will wrestle for control over the fast-developing technology.

During the week-long AI Impact Summit, attended by thousands of tech executives, government officials and AI safety experts, tech companies valued at trillions of dollars will rub along with leaders of countries such as Kenya and Indonesia, where average wages dip well below $1,000 a month.

Published: February 18, 2026, 5:00 am

The best kettles in the UK to save energy and speed up your cuppa, tested

We boiled litres of water to find the best electric kettles, from hard-water heroes to vintage-style, repairable and wifi-connected models

• The best air fryers, tried and tested for crisp and crunch

Despite the march of progress, the humble kettle remains a kitchen staple. It’s what we turn to in times of strife, when spirits are flagging, or to start our day. And when a visitor calls, one of the first things we do is put the kettle on.

While many small appliances have evolved beyond their original form, the kettle’s basic principles remain largely unchanged. Water goes in and heats up until a thermostat switches it off; the water then pours out, and we enjoy a cuppa. However, the technology that goes into a kettle has been slowly improving: better insulation to keep water hotter for longer and reduce reboils; different temperature settings to suit every drink from green tea to herbal brews; and more features such as filters and concealed elements to keep scale out of our cups.

Best kettle overall:
Bosch Sky kettle

Best budget kettle:
Kenwood Ripple kettle

Published: February 18, 2026, 3:00 pm

​T​he ​Winter Olympics ​feel like a 90s ​snowboarding ​game​, and I’m here for it

Milano Cortina​ has cutting‑edge replays, chase‑cam drones and exuberant commentary ​bringing a wave of unexpected nostalgia for anyone who grew up on 90s extreme‑sports games

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As someone whose childhood holidays consisted of narrowboating along the Grand Union canal or wandering the harbour-side at Whitby looking for vampires, I have never been on a skiing break. The idea of plummeting down a hill on anything but a plastic sledge is totally alien to me. And yet, my wife and I have been gripped by the Winter Olympics, especially the snowboarding and freestyle skiing events. And I think I know why. Those events are really channelling the look and feel of the wintery sports sims I’ve always loved – especially those that arrived during a golden period in the mid-1990s.

This was the era in which snowboarding was exploding in popularity, especially among twentysomethings with disposable incomes and no responsibilities – which coincidentally was the games industry’s target market at the time. Perhaps the first title to take advantage of this trend was Namco’s 1996 arcade game Alpine Surfer, which challenged players to stand on a snowboard-shaped controller and swoop as quickly as possible down a mountainside – it was one of the most physically exhausting coin-ops I ever played. Later that year came the self-consciously hip PlayStation sim Cool Boarders, and then in 1998, my absolute favourite, 1080° Snowboarding on the N64, with it’s intuitive analog controls and incredibly authentic sound effects of boards cutting through deep, crisp snow.

Published: February 18, 2026, 12:40 pm

Dust review – timely fictionalisation of a tech-bro dotcom bust that blighted rural Belgium

The drama about two startup innovators defeated by their egotistical overreach feels as if it presages these AI times

The crisis facing a couple of middle-aged Belgian tech bros in the 1990s might be better suited to a European streaming-TV drama – maybe with the two antiheroes’ travails confined to the first episode, setting up a lengthier intergenerational drama taking us to the present. Nonetheless, here it is: a feature film in the Berlin competition from screenwriter Angelo Tijssens and director Anke Blondé, handsomely produced and shot, and impeccably acted. But it’s also weirdly parochial, leaving you with the sense that it has not reached beyond its immediate concerns; and it’s not clear as to why, exactly, we need a fictionalised crisis from the 90s inspired by a real-life financial fraud scandal.

Well, perhaps the point is that very smallness and sadness: a pathetic tale of the first, almost-forgotten dotcom bust, which holds an omen for our AI-obsessed present. Arieh Worthalter and Jan Hammenecker play Geert and Luc, two balding guys who, in the late 90s, are Belgium’s pinup boys of tech innovation. Their startup company has gone public and made them both very rich, and all their local friends, family and businesses have plunged every cent of their savings into shares. Geert and Luc are now poised to turn the mud of Flanders into a European Silicon Valley.

Published: February 18, 2026, 12:49 pm

Stone, parchment or laser-written glass? Scientists find new way to preserve data

Hard disks and magnetic tape have a limited lifespan, but glass storage developed by Microsoft could last millennia

Some cultures used stone, others used parchment. Some even, for a time, used floppy disks. Now scientists have come up with a new way to keep archived data safe that, they say, could endure for millennia: laser-writing in glass.

From personal photos that are kept for a lifetime to business documents, medical information, data for scientific research, national records and heritage data, there is no shortage of information that needs to be preserved for very long periods of time.

Published: February 18, 2026, 4:00 pm