The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case against the TikTok divest-or-ban bill on Friday, which will determine the future of the app in the US. 

Read the full story at The Verge.

Lenovo’s mysterious “future of gaming handhelds” event at CES delivered confirmation this week that Microsoft is combining “the best of Xbox and Windows together” for handhelds. Microsoft’s VP of Next Generation, Jason Ronald, spoke to my colleague Sean Hollister after the event to reveal that not only are big changes coming to the Windows handheld experience but also “you’re going to see a lot of stuff as early as this year.”

I’ve been writing for more than a year about how Microsoft needs to overhaul Windows on handhelds and use an Xbox OS UI on top, keeping the complexity of the Windows desktop hidden away. That sounds exactly like what Microsoft is about to do. “I would say it’s bringing the best of Xbox and Windows together, because we have spent the last 20 years building a world-class operating system, but it’s really locked to the console,” says Ronald. “What we’re doing is we’re really focused on how do we bring those experiences for both players and developers to the broader Windows ecosystem.”

Ronald says Microsoft’s “goal is to deliver an Xbox experience that puts your content front and center, and not the Windows desktop that you have today.” For this to happen in...

Read the full story at The Verge.

First announced at CES four years ago, My Arcade’s Super Retro Champ was a chunky handheld that could play classic 16-bit titles using original Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo cartridges. The console didn’t end up launching, but at CES 2025, My Arcade is reviving it with an expected release later this year.

The design and functionality of the Super Retro Champ appears nearly identical to what My Arcade revealed in 2020, but as with many things now, it’s expected to be slightly more expensive. Instead of $110, the handheld is now priced at $149.99.

Image: My Arcade

Unlike the Analogue Pocket, which can play retro titles using cartridges or ROM files, the Super Retro Champ is similar to the ModRetro Chromatic and sticks to carts. It’s got a slot on the top for SNES games (that end up slightly sticking out) and a second on the bottom for Genesis carts. It’s also compatible with cartridges released for the international versions of those classic consoles, including Super Famicom and Mega Drive games.

Image: My Arcade

With a six-inch screen surrounded by generous bezels plus a directional pad and action buttons on either side, the Super Retro Champ doesn’t prioritize portability. You can use it as a handheld with “hours of uninterrupted gameplay” from its rechargeable battery, My Arcade says, but it’s better suited for playing while propped up on a table using its folding stand, a pair of connected controllers, and a power adapter.

If six inches feels too cramped for you and another player, there’s also an HDMI port on the back of the Super Retro Champ for connecting it to a TV. Just don’t expect to enjoy your favorite 16-bit titles in HD or expect them to look as good as they did on the old CRT TV you grew up with.

Though Yuto Suzuki’s manga Sakamoto Days hasn’t been publishing for all that long, an animated adaptation of the series is already making its way to Netflix in just a few days.

Set in a world where it’s not uncommon for people to have superhuman abilities, Sakamoto Days tells the story of Taro Sakamoto (Tomokazu Sugita / Matthew Mercer), a legendary hitman who becomes a humble convenience store owner after falling in love with his wife. While Sakamoto’s wife Aoi (Nao Tōyama / Rosie Okumura) doesn’t hold his past against him, their marriage hinges on her rule that he must never kill again.

For the most part, it’s easy enough for Sakamoto to stick to Aoi’s rule. But things start to get tricky when a bounty is placed on his head that makes him the target of other assassins like telepath Shin Asakura (Dallas Liu) and sharp-shooter Heisuke Mashimo (Ryōta Suzuki / Xolo Maridueña). Netflix’s new trailer for the series teases a bit of how some of Sakamoto’s enemies quickly become allies in his fight to keep his small family safe, and while it doesn’t show all that much of the show’s action, we’ll be able to check it out for ourselves when the show debuts on January 11th.

Smart lock companies have spent 2024 crafting nifty ways for you to gain entry into your home, including iPhone-tapping Home Key options from Aqara, a palm scanner from Philips, keypad and fingerprint smart locks from August, and even a Face ID-style one from Lockly. These all sound pretty futuristic already... but do they feel like magic?

I’m talking magic like how my car’s driver door unlocks without me needing to do or touch anything other than pulling on the handle. I’m talking about smart home locks that see me approaching and take action — so I don’t have to pause and interact with anything when I really just need to run inside to use the bathroom.

Image: Ultraloq

Luckily, at CES 2025, many smart lock makers are poised to launch models that offer touchless passive entry support. That means you won’t need to take extra steps like pulling out an RFID fob from your pocket or smacking your Apple Watch against a pad to unlock your door. (That’s so last year!)

One of the most promising locks from the show is Schlage’s new Sense Pro Smart Deadbolt, which comes equipped with an ultra wideband (UWB) chip that will sense your paired smartphone’s trajectory and motion to know when to trigger an unlock for you.

Schlage isn’t the first to announce UWB in a smart lock; that credit goes to U-tec’s Ultraloq Bolt Mission, which was revealed last year. The Ultraloq was announced with a lack of support for the new Aliro smart access standard backed by Google, Apple, Samsung, and others (meaning no Apple Home hands-free unlocking support).

Now, the Bolt Mission is here at CES with a “Q1 2025” launch timeframe, a $399 price tag, and a promise that Aliro and Apple Home hands-free are coming. There’s also the Lockly Secure Pro, which promises Apple’s touchless feature, costs $379.99, and will arrive in Q4. While it’ll still be a while before a lot of these devices are on the market, the UWB-powered smart lock options are clearly arriving soon.

Image: Schlage

Of course, plenty of companies are still sticking to other unlock technologies instead of UWB. That includes palm scanner locks such as TP-Link’s Tapo PalmKey and TCL’s Smart Lock D1 Pro, both of which claim they use AI to scan for vein patterns in your hand. Meanwhile, others, like the Lockly Styla, are just here to look nice. Heck, if you’d rather have everything but UWB, you can look at SwitchBot’s new Lock Ultra, which literally has 16 different hands-on-something unlocking methods.

Smart lock makers are trying pretty much anything right now, including adding digital peepholes to deadbolts in the new Lockly Vision Prestige and TCL Smart Lock Ultra. But what’s really missing from smart homes today is that new car feeling: where you finally drive off the lot no longer needing to think about age-old ideas like lock, unlock, and push to start. We still have to see these locks in action to see whether they can reliably and securely pull off their hands-free feat. But the opportunity is coming. I hope the smart lock companies have that transformative feeling in mind as they launch products with UWB this year.

The first Nintendo Switch basically had the road to itself, and Nintendo instantly proved just how awesome a hybrid console and handheld could be, leading to massive success. The next Switch is imminent, but it will launch into a world that’s packed with very capable handheld gaming PCs that could present an interesting challenge to Nintendo, especially following news from CES 2025.

Valve’s Steam Deck kicked off the handheld gaming PC push in large part because its Linux-based SteamOS makes playing your games just about as easy as it is on consoles. That’s why one of the biggest CES announcements is that Valve is going to let people install SteamOS on other handhelds as soon as April, potentially making the entire handheld PC gaming market a lot more appealing.

The first official non-Valve device with SteamOS is set to be Lenovo’s $499 Legion Go S, which launches in May. But it’s not hard to imagine a near-term future where many other hardware makers announce their own SteamOS handhelds, meaning the magic of SteamOS might be available in all kinds of interesting devices very soon. (And hopefully, the increased competition means Valve will make the eventual next Steam Deck really good.)

Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

CES 2025 featured a bunch of other handheld gaming hardware, too, like the chonk that is Acer’s Nitro Blaze 11. It has a gigantic 10.95-inch screen, detachable controllers, and a kickstand. It’s huge! Intel and Tencent also made a handheld with an 11-inch screen, and theirs has stereo 3D. My colleague Sean Hollister finally got to see the MSI Claw 8 AI Plus. Razer made a docking station that works with handheld gaming PCs. And in a CES panel, Microsoft promised news about changes to the handheld Windows experience for later this year, which could improve things for people who already own Windows-based hardware.

That’s a lot of cool stuff! But Nintendo is the 800-pound gorilla in the room, and as interesting as all of the PC gaming hardware is, the Switch’s imminent successor will almost certainly be a very compelling upgrade. The original Switch was released nearly eight years ago, so the successor will likely be much more powerful and will probably have splashy new games in marquee franchises like Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda. (I’d bet already-announced Switch games like Metroid Prime 4: Beyond and Pokémon Legends: Z-A will get some kind of boost on the next Switch, too.)

Right out of the gate, Nintendo’s new console will also have an enormous library. The company already announced its next console will be compatible with original Switch games — a catalog that includes many of the indie hits that are also some of the best games on handheld PCs.

Back in 2017, when the original Switch launched, there wasn’t anything like it. The Switch’s successor will compete in a much more crowded field — and one that’s getting even more crowded after CES 2025. Hopefully, the competition means everyone makes better hardware and better games. It’s a great time for handhelds.

Astrohaus has announced a new addition to its distraction-reducing Freewrite line of writing tools at CES. Unlike its previous all-in-one devices that pair a keyboard with basic monochromatic screens, its new Freewrite Wordrunner is a standalone mechanical keyboard customized with keys and tools designed to help writers stay focused and work more efficiently.

The company hasn’t announced pricing for the new Freewrite Wordrunner yet, but it’s expected to be available for preorder sometime in February 2025 through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. The company’s all-in-one writing devices range in price from $349 to $999, but without a screen, storage, and other electronics, its keyboard will potentially be much cheaper. Discounts will be available to early backers, but Astrohaus is also currently selling $1 refundable reservations that promise “priority access” and “exclusive early-bird pricing.”

Image: Astrohaus

The Freewrite Wordrunner features a compact tenkeyless design, a body made from durable die-cast aluminum, backlit “high-quality tactile switches,” and several layers of sound deadening so it can be used in shared spaces without becoming a distraction to others.

What sets the Wordrunner apart from other mechanical keyboards is the addition of two electromechanical counters with rotating numbers on its top edge. One, called the Wordometer, will continually track word count until you press a reset button, while the other, upgraded with “subtle LED indicators,” serves as a timer for quick writing sprints or tracking your productivity.

Image: Astrohaus

The keyboard’s other big differentiator is a redesigned function row with keys customized for quickly navigating and editing a document. These include dedicated keys for undo and redo, jumping between paragraphs, and quickly skipping to the top or bottom of a page. There are also three dedicated macro keys — labeled zap, pow, and bam — that writers can customize to their specific needs.

This means the Wordrunner loses keys dedicated to controlling media playback, but that’s all handled through a rotating red joystick in the upper-left corner of the keyboard that can be pressed or moved in four directions for skipping tracks or making volume adjustments.

Other features include an extended wrist rest and the ability to connect to and switch between up to four devices through dedicated hotkeys. The Freewrite Wordrunner can connect to three devices over Bluetooth, including computers and mobile devices, and a fourth with a USB-C cable.

The popular open-source VLC video player was demonstrated on the floor of CES 2025 with automatic AI subtitling and translation, generated locally and offline in real time. Parent organization VideoLAN shared a video on Tuesday in which president Jean-Baptiste Kempf shows off the new feature, which uses open-source AI models to generate subtitles for videos in several languages.

“At the same time we have automatic translation working to translate the subtitles to your own language,” Kempf says, with more than 100 languages planned for support. “What’s important is that this is running on your machine locally, offline, without any cloud services. It runs directly inside the executable.”

AI-powered subtitling has been under development for some time in the form of a plug-in using OpenAI’s speech recognition system Whisper, but this new demo appears to be built directly into the VLC app and generates translated subtitles in real time. There’s no word on when the feature will roll out.

This week, VideoLAN also celebrated hitting 6 billion downloads, with Kempf boasting, “The number of active users of VLC is actually growing, even in this age of streaming services.”

With CES 2025 still in full swing, we’ll track VideoLAN down on the show floor to see the AI subtitling in action for ourselves.

Microsoft is holding another Xbox Developer Direct event on January 23rd. It’s the third Developer Direct in a row, making it an annual look at what’s ahead for Xbox for the year. Like last year’s event, Microsoft will provide some updates on Xbox games that are planned for release in 2025, including feature South of Midnight, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and DOOM: The Dark Ages.

Microsoft’s teaser image for the event also includes a teaser for an unannounced “brand new game” Xbox game. Last year’s Developer Direct featured a first look at Bethesda’s Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

The Xbox Developer Direct will likely follow a similar format to the last two events, with no hosts and around 45 minutes of gameplay and announcements. The Xbox Developer Direct will take place at 1PM ET / 10PM PT / 6PM UK on January 23rd and will be streamed live on on Twitch and YouTube.

Mercedes-Benz said that its electric vehicles will be able to access Tesla’s Supercharger network starting in February.

By now you should be familiar with how this goes: a manufacturer announces Supercharger access, first through the use of NACS-to-CCS adapters and then later with native NACS integration. The adapters are available to purchase through dealerships. And EV owners will get to giddily watch as the number of accessible public EV chargers suddenly grows by the thousands. (By last count, Tesla had 20,000 stalls in the US and Canada.)

Of course, this is all unique to North American residents, as Europeans who own any flavor of EV have long been able to access Tesla Superchargers thanks to a more enlightened stance on technology standards.

Mercedes will be the seventh automaker to gain access to Tesla’s lauded EV charging network, following Ford, General Motors, Rivian, Volvo, Polestar, and Nissan. Mercedes originally hoped to have everything sorted out with Tesla by 2024, but we’ll cut it some slack. Elon Musk was pretty busy last year. (Volkswagen is also planning on opening access this summer, PC Magazine reported.)

The adapter, which is produced by EV charging supplier Lectron, will sell for $185 through authorized dealerships. According to Mercedes spokesperson Andrew Brudnicki, the Lectron adapter is “the only adapter to date that has been tested for safety and compatibility with Mercedes-Benz EVs” and “includes other advantages for customers, such as a more robust interlock connection between the cable and adapter compared to similar adapters.”

(Lectron had a few issues with a faulty latch pin last year, resulting in a recall of around 1,600 units; the company says those issues were addressed in April 2024, and since then, there haven’t been any other problems.)

Tesla Supercharger locations will also be added to Mercedes’ charger map in its app. And the system will be integrated with the company’s use of Plug & Charge, in which charging initiates as soon as the customer plugs in, with no additional steps or authorizations required.

Later this year, Mercedes plans to roll out its first vehicles with factory-installed NACS ports. We don’t know which models will come first, but the company has a variety of EVs available, from the luxurious EQS, to the more affordable EQE and EQB, to the status-conferring electric G-Wagen.

Mercedes is involved in a range of EV charging expansion projects, including the installation of thousands of fast chargers with solar company MN8 Energy and the Ionna venture, along with several other major OEMs.

The AI search engine Perplexity is launching an integration with Tripadvisor that will add more information about hotels. Now, when you search for places to stay, Perplexity will present you with a neatly organized list of hotels, alongside summaries of why it chose them using information sourced from Tripadvisor.

In an example shared by Perplexity, a search for “hotels in Madrid for a business trip” yields a result for Hotel Regina, which the search engine says you should choose “if you want a centrally located hotel in Madrid with exceptional service and a rich breakfast offering.” It also displays its ratings and images from Tripadvisor as well as a list of perks, like “location,” “service,” and “cleanliness.”

Previously, Perplexity only displayed a numbered list of hotels with their address, user rating, and features, while showing images gathered from each hotel’s website in its sidebar.

“From the Tripadvisor side, they provide an up-to-date trustworthy source of information that we sync regularly,” Perplexity cofounder Johnny Ho said during an interview with The Verge. “On the fly, we’ll index and retrieve the right results depending on the user intent of the query.”

Perplexity, which bills itself as an “answer engine” rather than a search engine, plans to expand the Tripadvisor integration to include information about restaurants and experiences in the future. The AI search engine also added data from Yelp last year as part of its goal to include accurate information you can use.

The change comes just weeks after ChatGPT widely rolled out its AI search engine, which now displays results from the web for certain queries. Perplexity’s Tripadvisor integration is rolling out now to Perplexity on the web, but it will be available on its mobile app “soon.”

Meta’s overhaul of its content moderation and fact-checking policies in the US is bringing into focus a key geopolitical tension likely to grow under the incoming Trump administration: the regulation of speech online.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg made no secret of his attempt to align his interests with those of President-elect Donald Trump, saying he planned to work with Trump to “push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more” — naming Europe specifically. The US and the European Union have long had different approaches when it comes to digital regulation, which has at times inflamed tensions since many of the largest tech companies that end up being targeted by Europe’s rules are the US’s crown jewels. That dynamic is likely to be exacerbated under a second Trump administration, with the incoming president’s protectionist policies.

“The inflection point is Trump, and Facebook is just following along,” says Daphne Keller, director of the program on platform regulation at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center. Through the policy change, Meta is signaling to Trump that “we want to be part of a fight with Europe. We’re on...

Read the full story at The Verge.

Watch Duty, a nonprofit-run app that tracks wildfires with live maps and alerts, has shot to the top of Apple’s App Store charts this week as Californian residents look to navigate catastrophic blazes devastating Los Angeles.

The app launched in 2021 and is now available in 22 states, providing evacuation warnings, real-time text, photo and video updates, and a map interface with flame icons to show regions where fires are blazing. Users can access information on evacuation routes, shelter locations, and firefighting efforts, alongside zooming in on the map view to see the latest updates for precise locations. It’s a one-stop shop for everything needed during a fire emergency.

Watch Duty is powered by a team of around 200 volunteers, many of which are retired or active firefighters, dispatchers, or first responders. The app pulls its wildfire information from official government reports, volunteer reporters, and 911 dispatch calls which are then vetted and monitored using radio scanners, wildlife cameras, satellites, and local announcements from law enforcement and fire services.

Watch Duty says that the community-bolstered network allows it to provide more real-time information than fire-tracking services like CalFire and InciWeb which rely on government alerts. The app is used by active firefighters and has become a lifeline for people across the western United States who live in areas deemed to be high-risk fire zones — Watch Duty says its active users increased to 7.2 million by December 2024 compared to 1.9 million in 2023.

Californians on social media are encouraging each other to download the app in light of the ongoing LA fires raging across thousands of acres of land fueled by high winds and extremely dry conditions. As of Thursday morning, the LA Times reports that the fires have killed five people and destroyed more than 2,000 buildings, including the homes of celebrities like Paris Hilton, Billy Crystal, Adam Brody, and James Woods.

Over 367,000 California households are currently without power according to PowerOutage, and at least 130,000 LA residents are now under evacuation orders.

“Seconding the Watch Duty app so hard,” said one Californian on a Threads post encouraging users to download the app. “I live in Butte County, CA, (near where the Camp Fire was in 2018) and Watch Duty has been immeasurably helpful during fires like the Park Fire last summer.”

Watch Duty’s vice president of operations Nick Russell says that users are drawn to the app because it’s more accessible than manually checking several sources and social media updates, and because of its network for vetting and verifying factual information. Conspiracy theories surrounding natural disasters and climate change have become a common occurrence online, with misinformation regarding weather-related events being shared by users across social media platforms.

“One of the big things for us, our big theme, is quality over quantity. We’re not in a big hurry to get information that we’re going to have to go and retract later,” Russell told NBC News on Wednesday. “And so if it takes a few extra minutes to get it out there, that’s fine, but we want it to be that official info; and because we built a one-way communication platform, we don’t offer that venue for people to circulate nonsense ... And so it really puts the ball in our court for good information.”

Russell also noted that Watch Duty doesn’t collect or sell user data, instead relying on premium app subscriptions and funding from private donations to stay up and running. The core features of the app that are essential for fire monitoring, safety, and evacuation, are entirely available for free.

“I think it’s really important in today’s world, where so many people are trying to profit off disaster, to really understand that that’s not what Watch Duty is,” Russell said. “Watch Duty will remain free forever.”

We might be skeptical of some of Nvidia’s claims, like whether a $549 RTX 5070 will truly deliver the performance of a $1599 RTX 4090. But it’s almost impossible not to be impressed by the RTX 5090 Founder’s Edition, where Nvidia fit 575 watts of graphics power, including 21,760 CUDA cores and 32GB of GDDR7 memory, into a video card just two slots wide.

It almost has to be seen to be believed, and we sent my colleague Antonio G. Di Benedetto around the CES show floor in Las Vegas in what was initially a fruitless search. No PC manufacturer seemed to have an interactive game demo running on a 5090, much less the two-slot card.

But on Wednesday, we finally spotted the real deal at Nvidia’s offsite event — and then some. It’s heavy, and the uniquely desirable $2,000 card may wind up being rare, but it’s here, and it works.

Below, find our pictures of the relatively compact 5090; its incredibly compact PCB with the Blackwell chip on top; a game demo running on the 5090; a picture of the 5090, 5080, and 5070 Founder’s Editions side by side; and some examples of just how bulky every other partner’s cards can be compared to Nvidia’s own.

Read the full story at The Verge.

Google is testing an experimental AI feature that creates a personalized podcast using your Search and Discover feed history. The Daily Listen feature in Google’s Search Labs is rolling out to Android and iOS users in the US according to 9to5Google, and works similarly to the Audio Overviews feature for Google’s NotebookLM project.

Daily Listen references search data and Discover feed interactions to assess which news articles would be of most interest to the user, and then summarizes those stories and topics into a roughly five-minute audio overview. It provides a text transcript, alongside audio scrubber controls that allow users to play, pause, mute, rewind, or skip to the next story.

Image: Google (Via 9to5Google)

Search Labs users who opt-in to try this experiment will find Daily Listen in the personalized widget carousel underneath the Search bar at the top of the Google app. A “Related stories” tab will appear at the bottom of the audio player that corresponds to content within the overview that allows users to like or disapprove of each story with a thumbs up/down, and explore new topics.

There’s currently no word on when/if this feature will be rolled out to the wider public. Google’s AI Search Overviews were tested in a similar way via Search Labs before launching to a general audience last year, so it’s possible that Daily Listen may one day become a persistent feature — hopefully one that’s easier to opt out of than AI Overviews.

Apple is refuting rumors that it ever let advertisers target users based on Siri recordings in a statement published Wednesday evening describing how Siri works and what it does with data.

The section specifically responding to the rumors reads:

Apple has never used Siri data to build marketing profiles, never made it available for advertising, and never sold it to anyone for any purpose. We are constantly developing technologies to make Siri even more private, and will continue to do so.

The conspiracy theory the company is responding to resurfaced last week after Apple agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit over users whose conversations were captured by its Siri voice assistant and potentially overheard by human employees.

While Apple’s settlement addresses an issue that The Guardian reported in 2019. The report showed human contractors tasked with reviewing anonymized recordings and grading whether the trigger was activated intentionally, would sometimes receive recordings of people discussing sensitive information. But it doesn’t include any reference to selling data for marketing purposes.

After The Guardian’s report in 2019, Apple apologized and changed its policy, making the default setting not to retain audio recordings from Siri interactions and saying that for users who opt-in to sharing recordings, those recordings would not be shared with third-party contractors.

However, reports about the settlement noted that in earlier filings like this one from 2021, some of the plaintiffs claimed that after they mentioned brand names like “Olive Garden,” “Easton bats,” “Pit Viper sunglasses,” and “Air Jordans,” they were served ads for corresponding products, which they attributed to Siri data.

Apple’s statement tonight says it “does not retain audio recordings of Siri interactions unless users explicitly opt in to help improve Siri, and even then, the recordings are used solely for that purpose. Users can easily opt-out at any time.”

Facebook responded to similar theories in 2014 and 2016 before Mark Zuckerberg addressed it directly, saying “no” to the question while being grilled by Congress over the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018.

So, if Apple (and Facebook, Google, etc.) is telling the truth, then why would you see an ad later for something you only talked about?

There are other explanations, and attempts to check the rumors out include an investigation in 2018 that didn’t find evidence of microphone spying but did discover that some apps secretly recorded on-screen user activity that they shipped to third parties.

Ad targeting networks also track data from people logged onto the same network or who have spent time in the same locations, so even if one person didn’t type in that search term, maybe someone else did. They can buy data from brokers who collect reams of detailed location tracking and other info from the apps on your phone, and both Google and Facebook pull in data from other companies to build out profiles based on your purchasing habits and other information.

I’ll see your arm and raise you an arm and two legs. It was the battle of the bots on the CES show floor as robot vacuum manufacturers Dreame and Roborock each added limbs to their rival robovacs.

Dreame launched its X50 Ultra at the show earlier this week, debuting the first robovac that can use its legs to navigate steps and room transitions up to 6cm high. But elsewhere at the show, competitor Roborock was showing off its latest flagship, the Saros Z70, which has an arm that can pick up items like socks.

Not to be outdone, Dreame then showed off a soon-to-be-released model at its CES booth, combining those two step-climbing legs with a robotic arm of its own.

Dreame’s model has a chunkier-looking arm than the Roborock’s, and it says it can pick up items up to 500 grams, whereas Roborock’s can only tackle items up to 300 grams. Dreame says its arm can pick up sneakers as large as men’s size 42 (a size 9 in the US) and take them to a designated spot in your home. The concept could apply to small toys and other items, and you’ll be able to designate specific areas for the robot to take certain items, such as toys to the playroom and shoes to the front door.

However, I didn’t see the robot picking up a sneaker — or anything at all — apparently, the infamous CES show floor Wi-Fi couldn't hack it. Instead, they showed the robust-looking arm moving up, down, and around while the robot lifted itself up on its two small legs. It looked like a tiny horse.

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Another interesting invention is a separate toolbox with various brushes that Dreame says the arm can connect to, enabling it to reach into corners and tight spaces where the bot itself cannot go and sweep out the dirt and dust. They also had a new base station that dispenses multiple mopping pads. This allows the robot to choose different pads for different jobs around your home — one for the kitchen another for the bathroom — to help avoid cross-contamination around your home.

Dreame’s Longdong Chen told The Verge that the step-climbing, tool-using, arm-touting bot should be available later this year. A price hasn’t been announced, but it’s a safe bet that it’ll cost an arm and a leg.

Microsoft is rolling back a model upgrade to its AI-powered Bing Image Creator, reports TechCrunch. The rollback came after weeks of complaints by users that the tool just didn’t work as well after Microsoft “upgraded” to a new version of the DALL-E 3 model on December 18th.

Microsoft declined to comment on its decision to roll things back or offer specifics on what may be causing the gap between user’s expectations and its output.

Today, Microsoft’s head of search, Jordi Ribas, tweeted that they could reproduce “some of the issues reported” and are reverting to an older version of the DALL-E model for now, although it could take a few weeks until it’s complete.

As soon as Ribas posted about the change in December, there were complaints that Bing Image Creator was producing less-detailed results or images that didn’t accurately reflect their prompts. In his initial replies, Ribas said the model’s output quality “should be a bit better on average” than before.

It was the same story in posts and comments on Reddit and OpenAI’s community forums. On OpenAI’s forums, a person complained about the model’s handling of fabric on an anime-style character’s dress. The person who posted the below images says the one on the left is “perfect quality” while the one on the right is “over-lit.”

Screenshot: OpenAI community forum

Another didn’t like the way Bing placed starburst effects:

Screenshot: OpenAI community forum

All of these things are subjective, and I can’t claim to think any of them look better than any others. If anything, it feels like an indication that Microsoft doesn’t just have to deal with complaints about bugs or people upset about feature changes — now it has to deal with AI art critics comparing the machine’s output to what they imagine it should create. Perhaps they should ask the artists whose work the generators were trained on for tips about managing a client’s expectations?

Microsoft is preparing for a “major” Surface announcement later this month. The software giant has started teasing “a major announcement from Surface for Business” this week in a LinkedIn post spotted by Windows Central. The announcement will be made during Microsoft’s AI tour in New York City on January 30th.

Microsoft is rumored to be launching Intel-powered variants of its Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 11 devices soon, and a prototype of a Surface Laptop 7 with Intel’s Lunar Lake chips appeared on a Chinese second-hand marketplace in October. It’s likely that Microsoft will announce Lunar Lake versions of the Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 11 that are designed for businesses.

The Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 both shipped with Intel’s Meteor Lake processors earlier in 2024, before Microsoft went on to launch refreshed Surface Copilot Plus devices with new designs and Qualcomm chips.

The Surface Laptop Studio is also due for an upgrade from the current model’s 13th Gen Intel chips, but that’s less of a business-focused device so it’s unlikely to be part of this event. There are also rumors of an 11-inch Surface Go / Surface Laptop Go hybrid device powered by a Snapdragon X Plus processor, but again that’s unlikely to be targeted to businesses.

We’ll be following Microsoft’s AI tour live later this month, so stay tuned for details on the Surface “major announcement.”

Tonal on Wednesday launched the Tonal 2, an upgraded version of its smart in-home strength trainer.

Launched in 2018, the Tonal is a wall-mounted strength training machine with electromagnetically adjustable resistance and a touchscreen display. It can monitor lifting form, offer virtual coaching, predict and set the optimal weight for each exercise, and responsively adjust as you lift for a personalized workout. The company also offers on-demand workouts.

Along with sporting a new all-black design and chrome accents, the Tonal 2 comes with a host of meaningful internal improvements, including a new adaptive weight system with up to 250 pounds of digital resistance, up from the 200 pounds in the original trainer.

The latest version of the trainer now offers drop sets via a software update also available on the Tonal 1, with the option to automatically reduce weight during a set as muscle fatigue builds up. The Tonal 2 also comes with a new “Aero HIIT” mode, which lets you combine cardio and strength training into a single session.

Tonal also improved its optional Smart View feature, which uses cameras to watch your form and give real-time coaching cues. On the Tonal 1, Smart View required you to use your phone camera, and used the on-device camera for a second angle in some exercises; on the Tonal 2, it uses the built-in camera, with an option to use your smartphone for a second angle. The company says the camera also can now use AI to “analyze 500 data points per second.”

The Tonal 2 is available now, starting at $4,295, not including delivery and installation, plus a $495 “smart accessories bundle” that the company’s website says is “required to unlock the best Tonal experience.” It also requires a $60/month subscription, with a one-year commitment to start. Tonal noted on Instagram it will be introducing a trade-in program for existing Tonal 1 owners looking to upgrade, but didn’t give specifics. Tonal told The Verge the Tonal 2 can be mounted on the original Tonal’s existing wall mount for easier installation.