Tech
WIRED’s Guide to Actually Fun Valentine’s Day Gifts
Valentine’s Day is a sneaky one. It’s easy to let grabbing fun and unique Valentine’s Day gifts fall to the wayside while you recover from the Christmas holidays, but it’s not one to miss if you have a partner you want to shower with a little extra love.
If you’re feeling too wiped to shop, good news: I’ve got you covered. I’ve rounded up some of our favorite ideas for the year’s most romantic holiday, from Lego sets you can build as a date and date boxes filled with ideas to last you all year long to gorgeous flowers you can get delivered in a snap and cozy robes you’ll want to lounge in together. This guide all the Valentine’s Day gifts we’re excited to give this year.
Curious about what else we recommend? Don’t miss our Gifts for Lovers, Gifts for Moms, Gifts for Plant Lovers, Gifts for People Who Work from Home, and Best Blind Boxes for more gifts and shopping ideas.
Table of Contents
For a Gift That’s a Date
My husband and I are planning our fourth or fifth year of our favorite Valentine’s Day Date: building Lego sets together. We’ve done this for years, and then we get to enjoy the fruits (well, flowers) of our labor around the home forevermore. These sets serve as both the gift and the activity. Building the dried-flower centerpiece together was probably my all-time favorite, since you can each simultaneously work on one half and then click it together at the end, followed by each building a different-color bonsai tree.
For a Daytime Adventure
Building on the idea of date activities that involve gifts, this multi-person paddleboard is a fun way to spend time outdoors while staying together the entire time. It’s massive, almost raftlike, so that it can support the weight of up to three adults, but once we got the hang of the size, it wasn’t hard to maneuver. Sometimes we’d both row together, sometimes I’d let my husband do all the work. It made for a lovely daytime adventure together, and I can’t wait for the next warm day for my husband and me to take this out on our local harbor again. It’s big enough that we could bring our son, though it’s much more peaceful as a date activity. It’s inflatable, and I’d recommend grabbing an electric filler since it takes a lot of manual pumping otherwise.
For Flowers on Demand
The classic go-to for Valentine’s Day is, of course, flowers. WIRED reviewer Boutayna Chokrane tested several flower delivery services to find the best one to get sent to your home, and her favorite is the Ode à la Rose, specifically the Edith arrangements. The business was created by two former French bankers, and the arrangements’ design choices feel distinctly chic in a way only French romance can. The Edith bouquet is entirely Columbus double tulips from Holland, and come hand-tied in a travel vase a fun pink box. The flowers ship nationwide, and there’s same-day shipping in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Austin, Miami, and Washington, DC.
For a Jewelry Upgrade
Maybe you’ve already exchanged rings, or maybe you’re looking for your first set without committing to I do. Either way, the most popular fitness tracker to get these days is a smart ring, and Oura is the ruler of the space. The latest model is the Ring 4, and it comes in both metallic and ceramic finishes. Many of my friends love theirs. I wish I had one, but they don’t make sense for my husband and me since we’re an aerialist and rock climber duo. Live my dreams for me and get this for your valentine (and yourself)!
For Your Fave Photographer
If your romantic partner loves to capture photos, a digital photo frame is the perfect gift (and you’ll benefit, too, as likely the number one fan of their photography!). I’m the photographer of our house, and our Aura frame is my husband’s favorite gadget because it showcases photos I’ve captured of our son and life together over the years. Our wedding photos can be found on there too, as well as the occasional good photo of me that he’s captured. It’s a monthly ritual for me to go through my camera roll and add my latest favorites. Aura’s my favorite because the range of frames is beautiful, and the storage is unlimited with no fees or subscriptions.
For the Cozy Couple
One of my favorite souvenirs I have around the house is a matching robe set that my husband and I bought on our honeymoon. Our all-cotton robes are from the Ten Thousand Waves Japanese spa in New Mexico (the final destination of a Southwestern US road trip) and are great for taking to the pool or using after a shower on a hot day. But I still love a good fluffy robe during the colder season, especially since it can double as a towel. Get your partner one of these cozy robes to give them something luxurious to use after their next everything shower or quick rinse-off. Cozy Earth’s robe is crazy-soft thanks to its blend of cotton and bamboo viscose, while this flannel robe from L.L.Bean is one of our favorites for anyone who works from home.
For Your Inner Theater Kids
If your partner loves to sing along to the Wicked soundtrack and is regularly suggesting karaoke as a group activity, then give them the gift of making karaoke happen anywhere with these gadgets. The Bonaok Karaoke Microphone is one of our favorite karaoke microphones, letting you sing anywhere without lugging bulky equipment. The Ikarao Shell S2 is a portable device with two mics, a built-in screen, and support for streaming services, so you can sing along to your favorite songs on Spotify.
For the Fitness Couple
After the Christmas season, I saw a video on my For You page that roasted how every mom had clearly gotten a matching workout outfit set for Christmas and was out wearing it on Boxing Day. As a mom myself, all I could think of was how much I would love another matching workout set. I’m serious. They’re great for workouts, quick errands, and day care or school drop-off. My latest favorite set is from Bombshell Sportswear. The set is both super soft and fits securely without any annoying squeezing. It’s getting the most compliments of all my sets. I wish I’d sized up with the bolero, but as an aerialist, my lat muscles are a little bulkier than an everyday person’s.
Have a partner who doesn’t need a matching set? Try some fantastic running shoes instead, which are even more useful for both workouts and daily life. WIRED reviewer Adrienne So says these R.A.D. shoes are fantastic for a range of uses, as they’re designed for gym, HIIT, CrossFit, and hybrid workouts and are soft enough for treadmill running. They look fantastic, too.
For the Beloved Bookworms
A Kindle is always a great gift for anyone who reads in any format. Funny enough, my siblings and I are about to buy one for my dad for his birthday (two weeks before Valentine’s Day), and I recommended my favorite pick, the Kindle Paperwhite, since the standard Kindle is a little too small for his 6-foot-4 frame to hunch down over, and he doesn’t read enough illustrated books to make the Colorsoft the right jump for him. If they already have a Kindle, I’m still in love with my matching PopSockets Kindle case and grip, and they’ve since launched a new Bookish collection with beautiful designs.
For Some Bedroom Spice
Looking to spice things up? These adventure boxes can add more fun to the bedroom without creating additional mental work for you and your partner. An offshoot from the Adventure Challenge, “The Adventure Challenge … In Bed” scratch-off date book has 50 date ideas designed specifically to help facilitate fun and connection in the bedroom. The dates are categorized by activity type in sections like food, dancing, “sexploration,” and more. Each date is covered by a black box, with only icons indicating required fields such as duration, cost, and more. Meanwhile, the Fantasy Box is a date-night box service offering a range of themes, from sexy wine tasting to a kinky poker night, all designed to help couples communicate and connect more intimately. Before opening the box, each partner will fill out a questionnaire of potential intimate acts, and this box comes with everything needed for a truly kinky night in: a satin blindfold, pleather paddle, lingerie, lube, massage gel, feather wand, mini vibrator, and silky wrist restraints. —Molly Higgins
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Tech
Top Newegg Promo Codes and Coupons for March 2026
Listen up, nerds. Newegg currently has promo codes and deals on gently used, refurbished, new and hard-to-find electronics, gaming products and more. Remaining one of the biggest online-only retailers in the US for the last 20 years, Newegg is a leading global online retailer for PC hardware, home appliances and all things tech, as well as providing help with businesses’ e-commerce needs. In the last decade, Newegg has expanded its online retail presence, selling everything from PC parts to refurbished vacuum cleaners. So, whether you’re wanting to build your own PC or just looking to upgrade your laptop, Newegg has something for every type of tech lover. Plus, WIRED has found several Newegg discount codes (and other deals) for new and existing customers. Don’t wait too long—save big money on those big (and small) tech purchases in 2026.
Get the Latest Newegg Deals in 2026
Newegg is continuously adding deals, so be sure to check back often for serious discounts on unmissable tech. Some of the best deals we’ve been eyeing include Gigabyte B650M Gaming Plus Wi-Fi gaming motherboard for $110 ($20 off), Xbox 3-month game pass ultimate cards for $96 ($24 off), and ASRock Challenger Radeon graphics card for $600 ($50 off).
One of the best ways to save big on fun tech purchases on Newegg is through Newegg combo deals. If you’re looking to build your own PC, when you buy the components to it on Newegg, you’ll save big. When you choose items from two or more categories, you’ll unlock combo savings, like processor, motherboard, and memory cards. Plus there’s AMD combo savings and Intel combo savings, with up to $15 off Intel processors.
Save 3% With Exclusive Newegg Promo Codes, Only at WIRED
We at WIRED know that one of the best ways to save on essential (often price) tech is buying through a trusted retailer like Newegg, and that’s why we have a WIRED-exclusive promo code, valid only on newegg.com only—not in Canada or Newegg Business. PCs can break or make your online experience, especially when it comes to gaming, so that’s why Newegg is offering 3% off gaming notebooks with our exclusive promo code only at WIRED. Even better, this deal is stackable, meaning it can be added on top of any other applicable coupon (but the max discount amount per order is $150).
How to Redeem a Newegg Coupon
If you qualify, the best current Newegg promo code to save coins is their education discount, which gets you 8 to 10% off (up to $100) an entire order. Use this Newegg discount code, which will help you save once you have verified your status. Copy the code using the handy pop-up button below the coupon, and once you’ve found the must-have item, apply the Newegg edu promo code during checkout to get the discount. The coupon is available to students, faculty, and education staff with a valid .edu email address.
Enjoy Exclusive Discounts and Benefits With a Newegg+ Membership
Newegg has a free membership program that gives you access to exclusive deals. To get a Newegg+ account, you’ll need to register, or if you already have an account, opt in to the program. Once it’s on your dash, you’ll get perks like free shipping, exclusive early access and offers, member-only discount codes, extended warranties, easier returns, dedicated customer service, and more.
Members are also eligible to view and enter Newegg Shuffle events, which give customers a chance to purchase limited offers at great deals. During these events, there are 3 phases: product selection, winner notification, and purchase. There are no advanced sign-ups allowed, meaning you’ll have to keep an eye on the website (or app) if you want to participate in the next shuffle.
Get the Latest Newegg Student Offers
You need a lot of tech as a student, which can get very expensive. Newegg wants to make those purchases a little less painful by offering student and faculty discounts and pricing for 5% discounts and more. Along with student pricing and discounts, there’s also special financing available to help offset initial expenses that may be a financial barrier to getting this necessary tech. This Newegg discount is available to anyone with a .edu email account. All you need to do is use your .edu email and click the ‘Student Discount Available’ button on eligible products.
Stay Tuned for Newegg Coupons and Flash Discounts
Even if the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are only available in November, you can still save a significant amount on your order using special Newegg promo codes and their 24-hour flash deals. Newegg Shell Shocker coupons include steep discounts on everything from PC components to gaming gear and hard-to-find tech gadgets. Check out our favorite Newegg discounts to get up to 80% off. The best thing is, early shoppers have Newegg’s Price Protection, so if the price drops after you buy, you get a refund. Gear up now to make sure you score big on your favorite electronics this holiday season. Make sure you sign up for the Newegg newsletter to get special offers, coupon codes, and exclusive promotions.
Other Ways to Save at Newegg Without a Promotional Code
Along with the education promo code for students to save 8% to 10%, Newegg also has a rewards program called EggPoints where members earn points for qualifying purchases. For every 100 EggPoints spent, you get $1 to spend at Newegg.com. Newegg also has Shell Shocker deals, which change every day and feature limited-time, deeply discounted sales on specific products, from gaming laptops to graphic cards, processors and other components. So, be sure to check back often to not miss a product you’ve been eyeing going on clearance.
Save up to $300 Combo Savings When you Build Your Dream Setup With Newegg PC Builder
Ready to level up your WFH or GFH (gaming from home) set up? Newegg PC Builder can guide you through the process of installing your perfect custom setup—whether you’re crafting a powerhouse Newegg gaming PC or a budget-friendly workstation. Choose your components, check for compatibility, and let Newegg do the heavy lifting with versatile assembly and shipping options. And make sure to check if there is a Newegg Coupon available to save even more.
Don’t Miss These Newegg Sales and Seasonal Coupons
Like I said before, be sure to check Newegg often for their seasonal sales throughout 2026, like the ultimate-capitalism-extravaganza that is Black Friday (and now, Cyber Monday, too), where Newegg has major discounts on a wide range of electronics for the few days leading up to Black Friday (through Cyber Week). Along with these peak holiday sales, they also have their own sales, like their Anniversary sale and FantasTech sale, which is essentially their version of Amazon Prime Day, where thousands of deals run for several days. It’s a good bet that if you check Newegg around Back to School time and during Memorial and Labor Day, there will be tons of end-of-season sales, too. After Christmas, they usually clear out a substantial amount of inventory with huge discounts on computer-related products like monitors and hard drives.
Snag one of our Newegg promo codes above to save on your next tech purchase, some of which can be used on already discounted items.
Tech
US Takes Down Botnets Used in Record-Breaking Cyberattacks
The collection of millions of hacked computers known as Aisuru and Kimwolf have been used to launch some of the biggest distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks ever seen. Now United States law enforcement agencies have wiped both of them off the internet along with two of the other hordes of hijacked computers—known as botnets—in a single broad takedown.
On Thursday, the US Department of Justice, working with the cybercrime-fighting agency within the US Department of Defense known as the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, announced that it had dismantled four massive botnets in a single operation, removing the command-and-control servers used to commandeer the hacker-run armies of compromised devices known by the names JackSkid, Mossad, Aisuru, and Kimwolf. Together, operators of the four botnets had amassed more than 3 million devices, the Justice Department said, and often sold access to those devices to other criminal hackers as well as using them to target victims with overwhelming floods of attack traffic to knock websites and internet services offline.
Aisuru and Kimwolf, a distinct but Aisuru-related botnet, had together comprised more than a million devices, according to DDoS defense firm Cloudflare, with Aisuru infecting a variety of devices ranging from DVRs to network appliances to webcams, and its Kimwolf offshoot infecting Android devices including smart TVs and set-top boxes. Cloudflare says the two botnets, working in conjunction, carried out a cyberattack against a Cloudflare customer last November that reached more than 30 terabits of data per second, nearly three times the size of the previous biggest such attack.
No arrests were immediately announced along with the takedowns, but a Justice Department statement noted that the US government was collaborating with Canadian and German authorities, “which targeted individuals who operated these botnets.”
“The United States is steadfast in our commitment to safeguarding critical internet infrastructure and fighting the cybercriminals who jeopardize its security, wherever they might live,” US attorney Michael J. Heyman wrote in a statement.
Of the four botnets taken out in the operation, Aisuru had gained the most notoriety, thanks to a series of record-breaking or near-record cyberattacks it carried out last fall. The botnet, whose use was rented out like many such “booter” services offering their brute-force disruptive capabilities to anyone willing to pay, has been most visibly against gaming services like Minecraft and independent cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs. Krebs, who has extensively investigated the botnet underground and Aisuru in particular, came under repeated attack from the botnet last year.
Then in November, Cloudflare absorbed a recording-breaking combined attack from Aisuru and Kimwolf that lasted only 35 seconds but reached 31.4 terabits per second, a volume of attack traffic close to triple the size of any seen before. (The company hasn’t revealed which of its customers was hit with that attack.)
In a report on the state of the DDoS ecosystem, Cloudflare described the maximum attack traffic of the combined Aisuru and Kimwolf botnets as equivalent to “the combined populations of the UK, Germany, and Spain all simultaneously typing a website address and then hitting ‘enter’ at the same second.” The botnet was capable, Cloudflare’s analysts wrote, of “launching DDoS attacks that can cripple critical infrastructure, crash most legacy cloud-based DDoS protection solutions, and even disrupt the connectivity of entire nations.”
In fact, all four botnets disrupted by the US operation were variants of Mirai, an internet-of-things botnet that first appeared in 2016, broke records at the time for the size of the cyberattacks it enabled, and eventually was used in an attack on the domain-name service provider Dyn that took down 175,000 websites simultaneously for much of the United States. Mirai’s code base has since served as the starting point for a decade of other internet-of-things botnets.
Tech
‘Uncanny Valley’: Nvidia’s ‘Super Bowl of AI,’ Tesla Disappoints, and Meta’s VR Metaverse ‘Shutdown’
This week on Uncanny Valley, hosts Brian Barrett and Zoë Schiffer discuss the highlights from Nvidia’s annual developer conference, and why Tesla recently got in trouble with some of its most loyal fans online. Plus, Meta’s initial decision to shut down Horizon Worlds VR on the Quest headset signals the end of the metaverse dream. (Meta has since reversed course, saying it will keep the platform on limited support for the “foreseeable future.”)
Articles mentioned in this episode:
You can follow Brian Barrett on Bluesky at @brbarrett and Zoë Schiffer on Bluesky at @zoeschiffer. Write to us at [email protected].
How to Listen
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Transcript
Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.
Zoë Schiffer: Brian, hello. Very exciting to have another way to talk to you when I’m not pinging you on Slack every five seconds.
Brian Barrett: It’s great, because Slack doesn’t have the voice part.
Zoë Schiffer: It doesn’t.
Brian Barrett: I will say: very sad that Leah won’t be a part of that journey today.
Zoë Schiffer: I know. It is really sad, but when the Leah’s away, the mice will play, and we will be talking about topics that Leah hates, so just wait.
Brian Barrett: And to be clear, she’ll be back next week. She’s just sick.
Zoë Schiffer: Yeah.
Brian Barrett: It’s allergy season.
Zoë Schiffer: Welcome to WIRED’s Uncanny Valley. I’m Zoë Schiffer, WIRED’s director of business and industry.
Brian Barrett: I’m Brian Barrett, executive editor.
Zoë Schiffer: This week on the show, we’re diving into Nvidia’s annual developer conference, why some Tesla influencers are fleeing the brand, and why Meta has finally shut down Horizon Worlds on Meta Quest. So to start us off, this week, Nvidia had its annual developer conference in San Jose. This is the big event in the AI industry. Some people even call it the Super Bowl of AI. Developers go, CEOs, researchers, WIRED reporters—and we’re all waiting to hear what CEO Jensen Huang is going to tell us about the future of the company.
Brian Barrett: One thing that’s interesting about the Nvidia conference too, is I feel like so much of it is business facing. It’s not a lot of stuff that you, as an AI consumer or someone who plays around with Claude, wouldn’t necessarily connect with. One thing, with a grain of salt, because this is someone who stands to make this money, but Jensen did say the revenue opportunity for artificial intelligence chips just at Nvidia might reach at least a trillion dollars through 2027.
Zoë Schiffer: Pocket change.
Brian Barrett: Pocket change, I mean, really, for Nvidia at this point. One thing that was really interesting: He introduced a new product. I always like when there’s an actual product tied to this rather than the promise of a product. A while ago, Nvidia struck a licensing deal with a company called Groq, not to be confused with the occasionally—
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