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A new year is the perfect time to get your spending in order, and if you're not trying to build your own spreadsheet, budgeting apps are one of the best ways to do it. To save yourself some money in the process, you can pick up a year-long subscription to Monarch Money, one of Engadget's favorite budgeting apps, for just $50 if you use code NEWYEAR2026 at checkout and you're a new subscriber. That's a 50 percent discount on the service's normal $100 price. Monarch Money makes for a capable and detailed budgeting companion. You can use the service via apps for iOS, Android, iPadOS or the web, and Monarch also offers a Chrome extension that can sync your Amazon and Target transactions and automatically categorize them. Like other budgeting apps, Monarch Money lets you connect multiple financial accounts and track your money based on where you spend it over time. Monarch offers two different approaches to tracking budgeting (flexible and category budgeting) depending on what fits your life best, and the ability to add a budget widget on your phone so you can know how you're tracking that month. How budgeting apps turn your raw transactions into visuals you can understand at a glance is one of the big things that differentiates one app from another, and Monarch Money offers multiple graphs and charts to look at for things like spending, investments or categories of your choice based on how you've labelled your expenses. The app can also monitor the spending of you and your partner all in one place, to make it easier to plan together. The main drawbacks Engadget found in testing Monarch Money were the app's learning curve, and the differences in features (and bugginess) between Monarch's web and mobile versions. Still, for 50 percent off, the Monarch Money is well worth experimenting with if you're trying to save money in 2026, especially if you want to do it collaboratively with a partner. Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/monarch-moneys-budgeting-app-is-50-percent-off-for-new-users-204507740.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
Were wrapping up coverage of the biggest tech show in the world. CES 2026 is almost over, and while we have more stories and wrap-ups to come, here are the most interesting products weve spotted, written about and critiqued/praised. That includes our picks for the best of CES. We gave out 15 awards as well as our best of show, and you might be surprised by some of our picks I know I was. Read on for some of the best things to come out of Las Vegas this week, but first up, our Best of the Best winner, which was Lego Smart Play. As Engadgets editor-in-chief Aaron Souppouris put it, Lego could almost be seen as the antithesis of the typical CES product. Regardless of trends, Lego has always persisted. And in 2026, its getting much smarter. Lego The system consists of a Smart Brick, Tags and Minifigures. Theyre packed with modern technology, so they can respond to how you play with them or the sets you build. The Smart Brick has a 4.1mm ASIC chip, which Lego says is smaller than a standard Lego stud. It senses things like motion, orientation and magnetic fields, but also has a tiny built-in speaker, which produces audio tied to live play actions, not just canned clips. Its hard to explain it in only a few words (weve got a deep-dive hands-on right here), but what immediately drew me in was the lack of smartphone pairing and screens. The ability of each part to detect and interact with others can lead to some ridiculous setups, whether its ducks and police officers or a helicopter or an X-Wing. Naturally, its a little pricier than basic Lego, but not out of the realm of being a special gift or birthday present. One of the first sets, with a smart Darth Vader Minifigure, one Smart Brick and one Smart Tag, is $70. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled newsletter next week. Have a great weekend! Mat Smith The other big stories (and deals) this morning 19 CES gadgets you can buy right now The weirdest tech weve seen at CES CES 2026 proved the PC industry is hosed this year Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold hands-on: Flexing is believing Anker unveils a new lineup of chargers, docks and accessories at CES 2026 All the laptops that caught our eye at CES All the winners at CES 2026 Wait, IKEA? Engadget With no further ado, here are our winners. Best robot: Switchbot Onero H1 Best accessibility tech: WheelMove Best TV: LGs Wallpaper TV Best AI hardware: Subtle Voicebuds Best smart home: IKEA Matter-compatible smart home Engadget Best home theater: Samsung HW-QS90H Best audio: Shokz OpenFit Pro Best outdoor tech: Tone Outdoors T1 Best toy: Lego Smart Play Best PC or laptop: Dell XPS 14 + 16 Best health tech: Eyebot eye test booth Best gaming tech: ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo Best mobile tech: Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold Most promising concept: Lenovo Legion Pro Rollable Best emerging technology: IXI autofocus lenses Everything NVIDIA announced at CES 2026 NVIDIA has started production of its Vera Rubin supercomputer. Engadget On Monday, which feels like an age ago, Jensen Huang shared the latest from NVIDIA. While the presentation was more a refresher than a barrage of new announcements, it was a pretty low-key presentation, with lots of AI chat. One announcement was Alpamayo, a family of open-source reasoning models designed to guide autonomous vehicles through difficult driving situations. The centerpiece is Alpamayo 1, a 10-billion-parameter chain-of-thought system NVIDIA says can drive more like a human. When it comes to tech we all might use, we had to wait for a separate event, when NVIDIA announced DLSS 4.5 and G-Sync Pulsar. For both features, youll need a 50-series GPU. You got one, right? Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-193045065.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
Meta's messaging app WhatsApp could soon be subject to deeper scrutiny (and punishment) under the European Commission's Digital Services Act, Reuters reports. Because the app's broadcasting feature WhatsApp Channels grew to around 51.7 million average monthly active users in the European Union in the first six months of 2025, the feature has crossed the 45-million-person barrier that lets DSA rules apply.A platform is designated as a "very large online platform" or VLOP once it has 45 million monthly users or more, according to the European Commission. Once an app or service passes that amount, it's subject to the DSA and all its rules about how digital platforms should operate, particularly around removing illegal or harmful content. Companies can be fined up to six percent of their global annual revenue for not complying with the DSA.WhatsApp traditionally functions as a private messaging app, but its Channels feature, which lets users make one-sided posts to anyone who follows their channel, does look a lot more like Meta's other social media platforms. "So here we would indeed designate potentially WhatsApp for WhatsApp Channels and I can confirm that the Commission is actively looking into it and I wouldn't exclude a future designation," a Commission spokesperson said in a daily news briefing Reuters viewed.Engadget has asked Meta to comment on WhatsApps possible new designation. Well update this article if we hear back.The possibility that WhatsApp could become a regulatory target in the EU was first reported in November 2025, but Meta has been dealing with DSA-related fines since well before then. Meta was charged with violating the EU law in October 2025 because of how it asks users to report illegal content on Facebook and Instagram. Earlier that month, a Dutch court also ordered the company to change how it presents the timelines on its platforms because people in the Netherlands were not "sufficiently able to make free and autonomous choices about the use of profiled recommendation systems" in the company's apps.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/whatsapp-might-soon-be-subject-to-stricter-scrutiny-under-the-eus-digital-services-act-191000354.html?src=rss
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