ICYMI: the week’s 7 biggest tech stories from Amazon teasing Alexa upgrades to the iPhone’s first official porn app
This week was a weird one in the world of tech, but we’re still here to help you catch up on all the biggest tech news stories you might have missed in the past seven days.
On the normal end, we got a date and time for Nintendo’s Switch 2 Direct presentation (April 2, 2025), and on the ‘I can’t believe we’re syaing this end,’ Apple got flustered by the iPhone’s first-ever official porn app.
Once you’ve caught up on all that and more, be sure to check out our picks for the seven new movies and TV shows to stream this weekend (February 7).
7. Nintendo set a Switch 2 presentation date
We now know exactly when the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct is happening on April 2. Thanks to Nintendo’s official social media channels over on X / Twitter, it’s been confirmed that the anticipated broadcast will happen at 6am PT / 9am ET / 2pm GMT / 3pm CEST. This really comes as no surprise, as Nintendo Direct presentations typically land in the morning for US audiences and mid-afternoon in the UK and Europe.
As for the contents of the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct, the company remains tight-lipped. We don’t think it’ll be a deep exploration of the system’s specs, but the presentation should give us a decent idea of the new hardware’s improvements. It also seems reasonable to expect a look at new Nintendo Switch 2 games, potentially including a better look at that new Mario Kart title we saw in the official reveal teaser.
6. Dyson’s new handheld vacuum turned out to be… not so new
Dyson has added a handheld vacuum to its range, but it turns out the Dyson Car+Boat is really just a V8 stick vacuum shipped without its wand and floorheads. We couldn’t help but feel a little cheated, and not just because the V8 launched a decade ago, in 2016.
That disappointment aside, the new addition actually performed very well in our official Dyson Car+Boat review. Although it’s not the newest Dyson stick vacuum, it is the smallest and lightest of the current range, and when pitted against other handhelds, the Car+Boat easily wins out. The battery life is double that of most handheld vacuums, and it’s powerful enough to blast through even the most challenging cleanup tasks.
In short, the Car+Boat is an ultra-capable handheld vacuum, we just wish we were getting more of that trademark Dyson innovation instead.
5. OpenAI fought back against DeepSeek R1
It didn’t take long for OpenAI to flex its muscles following the incredible success of Chinese start-up DeepSeek. Just last week, we were talking about the US AI company’s concerns following the launch of a completely free reasoning model, DeepSeek R1, that was just as good, if not better, than OpenAI’s o1 offering.
Now, not only has OpenAI revealed Deep Research, an incredible AI agent that works as your own personal analyst, ready to tackle any research you throw at it and come back with results, but Deep Research has also eclipsed all rivals on the world’s hardest AI exam.
If that wasn’t enough, OpenAI also announced this week that ChatGPT Search, its competitor to Google Search, would no longer require a login, allowing anyone to use the free AI search engine without the need to give up any personal information. It’s fair to say the company took DeepSeek’s attempt to shake up the AI industry personally, and now it’s us, the consumers, who are reaping the rewards.
4. Amazon teased Alexa upgrades
Amazon invited people to an exclusive product launch event in New York City later in February. While many details from the invite made us reasonably confident it would be for the long-awaited Alexa AI upgrade we’ve been waiting for, Amazon spelled it out for us as it was discovered that combining five invites would show you ‘alexa’ in a cursive font.
We’re not certain what this new Alexa will be capable of, but leaks have suggested it’ll finally start to catch up with the likes of ChatGPT, Gemini, and other LLMs, which have left the smart assistant in their dust.
More specifically, they tease that Alexa will be better at understanding and responding to natural human speech, such as multiple prompts presented in a row. It’ll also be able to perform more tasks autonomously as an AI agent. Unfortunately, it might also cost $5-$10 a month – but we’ll have to take all these details with a pinch of salt until Amazon’s event in a couple of weeks.
3. Apple launched Invites
Apple has been making slow and steady Calendar app improvements across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, but it just made organizing parties 100 times easier with the brand-new Apple Invites app for iCloud+ users.
It’s designed to be a one-stop shop for creating the event invite, from setting an event description to correctly capture the vibe to building a guest list and managing who has RSVP’d and who isn’t coming. It can even serve as an easy one-stop shop for guests who can see all the event info without everyone needing to message the host the same questions individually.
iCloud+ is a central part of this, as you need it to send invites and create an event but anyone can receive them even people on Android.
2. Apple got mad about the iPhone’s first porn app
That isn’t a sentence we expected to write this week, but it’s 2025, so all bets are off. Yes, the iPhone’s first official porn app (called Hot Tub, of course) has just landed in the EU, and Apple isn’t best pleased – to put it mildly.
Hot Tub arrived thanks to EU regulations that recently opened the door to third-party iOS app stores like AltStore, where you can download the app (or so we’ve heard). Apple was quick to point out it’s “deeply concerned about the safety risks” and disapproves of the controversial porn aggregator.
An added dimension to the story is that AltStore is funded by Apple’s nemesis Epic Games, who recently battled it over Fortnite. We can feel a Netflix documentary coming on…
1. Apple’s robot stole our hearts
Apple also showed off its ELEGANT (Expressive and Functional Movement Design for Non-Anthropomorphic Robot) lamp this week – and this real-life Pixar lamp is wonderfully cute.
Videos showcased the robot’s functional meets expressive approach, which saw it perform tasks with a bit of flair – at one point, the robot was asked to grab something out of reach, and rather than simply realizing it wasn’t long enough, the lamp tries to stretch a few times before shaking its head and admitting it can’t complete the task.
While playing music, it danced along, and while helping a user build a 3D printer, it performed micro-adjustments that made it seem alive before playing a video of the instructions when it saw they were struggling. Apple hasn’t announced any plans to launch this as something you can buy one day, but we’re hoping we’ll one day get an Apple iLamp announcement.