Technologies
Speediance Unveils New Compact Resistance Trainer and Wearable
Speediance is aiming to make strength training more portable with a wearable unveiled at CES.
Speediance unveiled its new Gym Nano and Speediance Strap products this week at CES 2026. The smart fitness equipment manufacturer, which previously developed its own smart home gym, the Gym Monster 2, designed the Gym Nano and Speediance Strap to complement its current equipment ecosystem.
«Rather than developing products in isolation, we’re building a comprehensive training and health ecosystem that adapts to users’ real lives and empowers better decision-making over time,» Speediance founder and CEO Liu Tao said in a statement.
Speediance used the consumer tech expo in Las Vegas to demonstrate the Gym Nano, a portable, motor-driven cable resistance training system designed to occupy minimal space for those who prefer to work out at home. The strap is a prototype wearable device designed to read your health data and provide training recommendations based on this insight.
CNET previously tested Speediance’s VeloNix AI Smart Bike and named it the best AI-powered exercise bike.
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Gym Nano
The Gym Nano is a compact digital cable resistance machine trainer that fits any space and delivers full-body workouts. It’s meant to make strength training at home easier if you have limited space and can’t commit to larger home gym equipment.
The Gym Nano offers up to 220 pounds of resistance through adjustable 1-pound increments. It also has five dynamic weight modes: Eccentric, Chain, Standard, Fixed Speed and Sled.
Speediance Strap
The Speediance Strap is a screen-free wearable that collects data related to your sleep, training and core body temperature. It then uploads and shares this data to the Speediance Wellness Plus app, where it makes suggestions for your daily training and recovery based on this information.
The strap can be used for both endurance and strength training activities and recognizes various types of exercises, movement patterns, training volume and other insights that can help you learn how well your body is responding to your training.
The Speediance Strap is a screen-free wearable that collects data related to your sleep, training and core body temperature. It then uploads and shares this data to the Speediance Wellness Plus app, where it makes suggestions for your daily training and recovery based on this information. Similar to other wearables, the Speediance Strap assesses your readiness each day and can detect stress factors to determine if you should focus more on recovery on that day.
«With Speediance Strap, we are exploring how wearable data can function as part of a decision-support layer within a connected fitness system, rather than existing as isolated metrics,» Tao said in a statement.
Additionally, everyday insights (like core and recovery data) will be free to you unless you want to upgrade to the Wellness Plus access, which will come at an additional cost to receive long-term insights and AI planning.
It’s unclear when the Gym Nano will be available for purchase, but the Speediance Strap is expected to launch through a Kickstarter campaign in spring 2026.
Technologies
McDonald’s KPop Demon Hunter Meals Include Bright Purple Nugget Sauce
The Derpy McFlurry mixes popping boba pearls and berry sauce into a soft-serve dessert.
McDonald’s has seen success with themed combo meals, including its holiday Grinch Meal. Now, the fast-food chain is capitalizing on Netflix’s Oscar-winning animated film, KPop Demon Hunters, with new upcoming menu items and both a breakfast meal and a lunch/dinner offering. Let’s hope you like the color purple.
The HUNTR/X Meal, named for the K-pop girl group in the movie, is a 10-piece chicken McNuggets meal that includes a medium drink and three special menu items.
Ramyeon McShaker fries come with a small bag of soy, garlic, sesame and spice seasoning, along with regular McDonald’s french fries. You sprinkle the seasoning into the provided bag, dump in the fries, shake it all up and eat.
The meal includes two new sauces for the fries and nuggets. Hunter sauce is a sweet chili sauce mixing notes of chili, garlic and pepper. But my favorite item on this new menu is Demon sauce, a bold mustard sauce with some heat and a bold purple color. There’s just not enough dark purple food out there.
There’s also a new dessert, the Derpy McFlurry, which blends creamy vanilla soft serve with berry-flavored popping boba pearls, served with a swirl of wild berry sauce. McDonald’s named it for the supernatural feline, Derpy Tiger, from the movie.
If breakfast is your bag, the new morning meal is the Saja Boys Breakfast Meal, named for the movie’s boy band.
It includes a Spicy Saja McMuffin sandwich, which is a sausage McMuffin with egg and a spicy Saja sauce, hash browns and a small drink.
Both meals come with a photocard for one of the bands and a Derpy card. The Derpy card includes a QR code you can scan to unlock online content about the film.
The full KPop Demon Hunters menu should be available at participating McDonald’s beginning March 31.
The McDonald’s Grinch meal (and its accompanying patterned socks) sold out quickly, so KPop Demon Hunters fans may want to mark their calendars and nab a meal when they are released.
Technologies
Melania Trump Escorted by Talking Humanoid Robot at White House Tech Summit
The first lady shared the spotlight with the robot to promote the use of artificial intelligence in education.
An unexpected guest escorted Melania Trump at the Fostering the Future Together Global Coalition Summit on Wednesday: a Figure 03 humanoid robot.
During the event, the first lady pitched a future where AI-powered humanoid robots — presented as an idealized educator named «Plato» — provide students with personalized and instant access to human knowledge, including philosophy and art.
The Figure 03 robot is made by Silicon Valley-based robotics company Figure AI, which introduced its third-generation humanoid robot in October last year. The Figure 03 robot costs around $25,000, according to Forbes.
Figure 03 was designed for people to use in their homes, with demo videos showing it folding laundry, lifting eggs from a carton, using a washing machine and delivering drinks to its owners lounging by the pool. It was also shown in corporate use cases as a receptionist and a package deliverer. Using a proprietary AI engine called Helix, it can autonomously perform these tasks and respond to your voice commands.
The humanoid was seen walking slowly down the red carpet at the tech summit and then delivering opening remarks.
«I’m grateful to be part of this historic movement to empower children with technology and education,» the Figure 03 humanoid robot said. It then said «welcome» in various languages.
The first lady later said that AI-powered humanoid robots could exist in children’s homes as an aid to their education to «boost analytic skills and problem solving and adopt in real time to a student’s pace, prior knowledge and even emotional state.»
The two-day summit is hosting leaders from 45 nations and 28 technology organizations, and is intended to «empower children through education and technology,» according to a White House statement. Guests included representatives from tech giants such as Google, OpenAI, Microsoft and AI data analytics company Palantir.
The summit is part of the first lady’s Be Best: Fostering the Future initiative, which aims to help children learn using advanced technology. It was introduced in 2018 as an awareness campaign aimed at combating cyberbullying and helping children affected by the opioid crisis.
US Education Secretary Linda McMahon spoke about AI being one of the Department of Education’s main priorities on the first day of the summit.
«If we’re able to scale these resources effectively by investing in AI infrastructure and training, we can offer expert instructions across countless fields, to hire volumes of people at a fraction of the cost,» McMahon said Tuesday at a round table meeting.
According to McMahon, the Department of Education has already dedicated millions of dollars in grants to support the use of AI in schools.
The event follows criticism of the Trump administration’s 2025 executive order to dismantle the Department of Education. While the Department of Education hasn’t been officially abolished, it has undergone significant policy changes, funding cuts and workforce reductions.
The introduction of a humanoid robot at the summit sparked significant backlash among many who are wary of the technology’s role in the classroom. Critics took to social media to voice concerns that these machines could eventually replace teachers, stripping the education system of essential human connection, and leading to increased layoffs and cost-cutting.
On one Huffington Post Instagram post featuring the robot, commenters expressed deep skepticism, with one user sarcastically noting, «Nice, getting rid of educators in favor of a robot,» while another flatly rejected the concept, stating, «No, I don’t want to imagine a world with emotionless robots educating our children.»
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Technologies
Nintendo Dropped a Switch 2 Update With a New Mode You’ll Want to Turn On Immediately
This new feature is one of the best yet.
A new firmware update hit the Nintendo Switch 2 last week. Among the multitude of small changes is a new feature that will give Switch 1 games a notable upgrade.
Version 22.0.0 for the Switch 2 went live on March 16 and is available for download to the console. The big new feature in the update was Handheld Mode Boost, which will give Switch 1 games a visual upgrade when played on the Switch 2 in handheld mode.
[Nintendo Switch 2 System Update]
Version 22.0.0 adds «Handheld Mode Boost». This will make Switch 1 games think that they are in TV mode even when in handheld.
Games can run at higher resolutions in TV mode, taking better advantage of the Switch 2’s 1080p screen. pic.twitter.com/aXOKWosFAw— OatmealDome (@OatmealDome) March 17, 2026
What does Handheld Mode Boost do?
Even though the Switch 2 supports backward compatibility with almost all Switch 1 games, there was an issue. The Switch 2 has a higher resolution screen: 1080p versus the older hardware’s 720p. When playing a Switch 1 game on a Switch 2 in handheld mode, the graphics looked blurry and jagged.
When enabled, Handheld Mode Boost makes a Switch 1 game act as if it’s docked, so it displays 1080p at 60 frames per second. This will give the visuals an immediate upgrade.
How do you enable Handheld Mode Boost?
Handheld Mode Boost has to be turned on to see the effect, and it takes a few steps:
- Select Systems Settings from the Home menu
- Select System
- Select Nintendo Switch Software Handling
- Enable Handheld Mode Boost
Is there a downside to enabling Handheld Mode Boost?
A user on Reddit tested the mode to see how it affects the Switch 2’s battery life. The test used Doom Eternal for the Switch 1 with and without Handheld Mode Boost. The test showed that the battery life decreased from 5 hours, 5 minutes to 3 hours, 43 minutes. That’s a 27% drop and should be taken into account when using Handheld Mode Boost.
How do I upgrade my Nintendo Switch 2?
If you have Software Auto-Updates enabled on your Switch 2, a pop-up window should come up whenever you start a game. If not, head to System Settings and choose to update the console from the menu.
What other features were added in version 22.0.0?
Handheld Mode Boost was the main star of the new firmware update, but there were a slew of other changes.
- Changed the on-screen text and animations when you load a virtual game card in the HOME Menu.
- Added the ability to save notes about friends on your Friend List. The note content is not displayed to friends.
- Added the ability to invite friends to GameChat rooms you’re participating in. Some friends may not be able to be invited, such as supervised accounts.
- Friends who haven’t finished GameChat’s initial setup can now be invited to GameChat. Some friends may not be able to be invited, such as supervised accounts or those who haven’t used a Nintendo Switch 2.
- Added the ability to rewind 10 seconds/advance 10 seconds with the ZL and ZR Buttons when watching a full-screen video in News or Nintendo eShop.
- Added the option to add the following data to «Automatic Uploads» from Album.
- Text-to-Speech, under Accessibility, can now read the text in Album and during first-time setup.
- Added the ability to see the breakdown of storage capacity by data type for the system memory and microSD Express card.
- Added the ability to perform an audio test when «Linear PCM 5.1 Surround» is selected for TV Sound in Audio.
- When Airplane Mode is activated, the previously set preferences for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or NFC while in airplane mode will be saved and applied.
- Added the ability to individually enable or disable Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or NFC during Airplane Mode from the Quick Settings.
- Added the ability to see a notification in the Nintendo Switch Parental Controls smart device application when the Parental Controls PIN is input successfully on the console. This can also be set up to be a push notification to your smart device.
- General system stability improvements to enhance the user’s experience.
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