You’re going to hate me. Two of my colleagues already do. That’s because yesterday, while they were busy working, I was wielding a Jedi lightsaber. It was a virtual lightsaber, dreamt up by the wizards inside Lucasfilm, but a lightsaber nonetheless. The pulsing blue laser sword I held may exist only inside a HTC Vive …

If Snapchat made a gadget, what would it be? That’s not a rhetorical question. The social media startup, currently valued at $16 billion, is recruiting hardware experts for a stealthy new project. Snapchat now counts nearly a dozen wearable technology vets among its ranks, as well as industrial designers who worked on Nokia phones and Logitech’s popular UE Boom Bluetooth …

Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are the phones to beat. When they hit the shops on March 11, they’ll be the best pocket computers you can buy — just read our Galaxy S7 review to see what I mean. But do you really need to upgrade from a Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S5, or maybe a Galaxy Note 5 …

For just $349, the Nexus 5X is a pretty great smartphone. For $199, it’s a steal — and starting today, that’s the price you’ll pay if you buy it straight from Google. There is one important catch, but it’s not nearly as significant as you might think. To get that $150 savings, you have to activate the Nexus 5X on …

Xbox VR? Don’t bet on it. Microsoft doesn’t see the need to produce its own virtual reality headset — and even if it did, that headset probably wouldn’t plug into an Xbox game console in the same way that rival Sony’s PlayStation VR headset works. “Would we ever do our own VR device? We could, if we thought we had …

Want to be one of the first people to walk around and grab things in virtual reality? Hope your wallet is ready. You can now preorder the HTC Vive. The price: $799 or £689. The first batch of headsets will ship on April 5, and you can order one right here. Update, 7:18 p.m. PT: The first batch of units …

Cables seem simple. Just plug them into the matching ports, and let the electrons flow. If you think of them as dumb copper wires, they seem completely interchangeable. Maybe not. As two people found out in recent months, the wrong cable could potentially fry your laptop. Benson Leung, a Google engineer, and Dieter Bohn, executive editor at The Verge, wound …

So close, yet so far. That’s how my home-built gaming PC scored on Valve’s new SteamVR benchmark. The test, which you can download on Steam today, is one of the first, best ways to tell whether your PC is ready to help an HTC Vive or Oculus Rift headset transport you to another world. Enlarge Image So close, yet so …

Now playing: Watch this: Samsung and LG introduce their new, killer phones 2:52 I want the best phone I can buy. Don’t you? And right now, I’m having a hard time deciding between the LG G5 and Samsung Galaxy S7, the two latest, greatest Android phones just announced at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona. I don’t have any …

Samsung’s Galaxy S7 keynote was full of surprises. The ultimate one: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg strode out on stage to explain how putting on a VR headset can actually be social. “Pretty soon, we’re going to live in a world where everyone has the power to share and experience whole scenes, as if we’re there in person,” said Zuckerberg. He …