Amazon has a new ZeroOne team focused on “breakthrough” devices, and it’s led by Xbox cofounder and former Microsoft executive J Allard, CNBC reports. Based on a job listing for the team, one of those products is a smart home device.
J Allard was one of the main faces of the original Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles, and during his nearly 20-year tenure at Microsoft, he also worked on the Zune MP3 player, Kin phones, and Courier tablet prototype. He joined Amazon to focus on “new ideas” in late 2024.
Job listings for his ZeroOne team at Amazon include senior roles in applied science, product marketing, and customer insights. The description for the applied scientist role says the person will work on “a new smart-home product,” while the product marketing job description vaguely mentions work on “an Amazon device.”
It’s unclear when a product from ZeroOne might actually be released.
Smart home tech isn’t anything new for Amazon, as the company already has various product lines within its Alexa ecosystem, including Echo devices and even other brands it owns like Blink and Eero. Amazon’s Alexa event in February was focused almost solely on its new AI-powered Alexa Plus smart assistant; which is still invite-only and carries a $20 per month subscription fee.
In dribs and drabs, we’re starting to get a better idea of what Tesla’s robotaxi service will look like when it launches in Austin, Texas, in just a few weeks. But it’s not nearly enough given what’s at stake.
The company is considering June 12th as a possible date to launch its robotaxi service in Austin, Bloomberg reports — though that date could change. Tesla has yet to publicly announce a date, nor has it clarified who will be able to access the vehicles.
The news comes as CEO Elon Musk said that the company has begun to test vehicles without safety drivers.
“For the past several days, Tesla has been testing self-driving Model Y cars (no one in driver’s seat) on Austin public streets with no incidents,” Musk said on X. “A month ahead of schedule. Next month, first self-delivery from factory to customer.”
“No incidents.”
But before you give Musk too much credit for the milestone, keep in mind that we still know next to nothing about how this service will operate. Tesla has never publicly demonstrated that its vehicles can operate fully driverless, without a human safety driver behind the wheel, on public roads. We have seen them drive themselves within the confines of Tesla’s factory, which is an environment totally controlled by the company and nowhere near as complex as an active city street with pedestrians, cyclists, and other vulnerable road users.
We know that Tesla plans to launch the service with 10–20 Model Y vehicles. Are these vehicles meaningfully different from the Model Ys that Tesla sells to its customers? It seems very likely, given that Ashok Elluswamy, VP of Autopilot and AI software, said in a recent earnings call that they would have “audio inputs” so they can pick up sirens from emergency vehicles, for example.
These vehicles will also be heavily teleoperated, meaning there will be remote operators watching the vehicles through their embedded cameras, ready to take control should a problem arise. But keep in mind this came from a research note published by Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, not from Tesla itself. Jonas also said the service will be invite-only at launch. So unless you’re a Tesla investor, a social media influencer with a sizable following, or a close personal friend of Elon Musk’s, don’t make any immediate plans to travel to Austin next month.
Tesla’s approach to its self-driving service is a major departure from how robotaxi companies typically handle these types of launches. Waymo, which it should be noted operates the only publicly available robotaxi service in the US, tests its driverless vehicles for weeks, sometimes months, before opening them up to members of the public. And even then, the company only allows specific people, usually from a waitlist, to ride in its vehicles.
Tesla’s approach to its self-driving service is a major departure from how robotaxi companies typically handle these types of launches
But before that, Waymo spends months driving manually around a city, gathering data about the streetscape and driving habits of other drivers. Sometimes it uses that information to launch a commercial robotaxi service; other times that data is just fed into Waymo’s central computer to make general improvements to its automated driving software.
Waymo is also relatively transparent about its process. Before it launched a robotaxi service in Phoenix, Arizona, the company invited journalists from dozens of outlets to its testing facility in Castle, California, allowing them to ride in the vehicles on a closed course. Waymo has also released its own safety case, posted numerous blog posts about its approach to safety, and published a handful of peer-reviewed studies that demonstrates how its technology routinely behaves safer than human drivers.
Tesla, on the other hand, has said very little about the safety of its vehicles beyond the hype-filled statements of its chief executive. Even the federal government, of which Musk was most recently a quasi-member as part of DOGE, has a lot of questions about the imminent launch. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which operates under the US Department of Transportation, recently sent the company a barrage of questions, including about the number of vehicles, their ability to operate in poor weather conditions, and on what timetable Tesla owners will be able to access the supposed driverless technology.
A lingering concern for NHTSA is that Tesla is basing its robotaxi service on its Full Self-Driving (FSD) driver assist feature. Tesla’s first-gen driver assist system, Autopilot, has been linked to hundreds of nonfatal incidents and 51 reported fatalities as of October 2024. At least two of those fatalities have been linked to FSD. NHTSA has been investigating these crashes for a number of years now.
Self-driving technology is built on a lot of stuff — cameras, software, AI, engineering, probability — but the success of any public robotaxi service will ultimately come down to trust. Do people trust the company building the technology enough to get inside a vehicle with no one in the front seat? Numerouspublicopinionpolls have shown declining support for autonomous vehicles over the years and a rise in outright hostility toward the technology.
Tesla will always have its fans — many of them fill my inbox with predictions of the company’s future success as well as personal insults for daring to question Musk’s leadership — but it will take more than a few reply guys to make a successful robotaxi business. Especially one we know very little about.
AI could soon surpass Bitcoin mining in energy consumption, according to a new analysis that concludes artificial intelligence could use close to half of all the electricity consumed by data centers globally by the end of 2025.
The estimates come from Alex de Vries-Gao, a PhD candidate at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Institute for Environmental Studies who has tracked cryptocurrencies' electricity consumption and environmental impact in previous research and on his website Digiconomist. He published his latest commentary on AI's growing electricity demand last week in the journal Joule.
AI already accounts for up to a fifth of the electricity that data centers use, according to de Vries-Gao. It's a tricky number to pin down without big tech companies sharing data specifically on how much energy their AI models consume. De Vries-Gao had to make projections based on the supply chain for specialized computer chips used for AI. He and other researchers trying to understand AI's energy consumption have found, however, that its appetite is growing despite efficiency gains - and at a fast enough clip to warrant more scrutiny.
You can circle, highlight, or tap the item you want to search for. | Image: YouTube
YouTube is bringing Lens to Shorts. The feature, which will roll out in beta in the coming weeks, will let you search for more information about the animals, plants, and items you spot within a video.
If you’re watching a Short with a landmark in the background, for example, YouTube says you can use Lens to search for the specific landmark and find out more about where the video was filmed.
You’ll be able to use the feature by accessing Shorts from within YouTube’s mobile app. After you pause the Short, tap the Lens button in the top menu, and then circle, highlight, or tap the item you want to search for. YouTube will then show visual matches and search results overlaid on the Short. The platform notes that when you select one of these results, you can “quickly jump back into the content you were watching.”
YouTube says that while Lens doesn’t use “biometric facial recognition” to identify specific people, it may show results for “notable public figures.” It also won’t show ads in results during the pilot, and will also not be available on Shorts with shopping affiliate links to start.
Instagram now supports photos that have a 3:4 aspect ratio, meaning that when you upload a photo with that ratio, “it’ll now appear just exactly as you shot it,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri says in a Threads post. He also notes that “almost every phone camera defaults to” that format.
An image from Instagram’s broadcast channel shows how the change makes a difference. You can already post images with a rectangular aspect ratio of 4:5, but with 3:4, your photo won’t be cropped at the ends. 3:4 photos are supported with single-photo uploads and with carousels, according to the channel.
If you want, you can still post photos with a square or 4:5 aspect ratio.
The change follows Instagram’s move in January to make profile grids feature rectangles instead of squares. “At this point, most of what’s uploaded, both photos and videos, are vertical in their orientation,” Mosseri said at the time.
The legal battle between two Amazon influencers with unsettlingly similar styles and vibes is nearing resolution. On Wednesday the two influencers asked a judge to dismiss the copyright case, more than a year after it was initially filed and six months after I wrote about it in The Verge.
The lawsuit was simultaneously disconcerting and benign, eerie and borderline comical: the story of two women whose lives had begun to resemble each other’s via social media platforms made for a compelling storyline. The cream, white, and beige aesthetic of their content (and lives) meant that the essence of what was allegedly infringed was commonplace, even basic — but the similarities, documented over dozens of examples submitted to the court, were strange nonetheless.
But the case was significant: it appears to be the first suit of its kind tackling influencer industry content, and the litany of allegations could have had the defendant, Alyssa Sheil, on the hook for millions of dollars in damages. Sydney Nicole Sloneker (née Gifford), the plaintiff and fellow Amazon influencer, said Sheil violated her copyright when Sheil posted similar-looking photos and videos that promoted the same products. Gifford also alleged trade dress infringement and misappropriation of likeness, among other claims, stemming from Sheil’s content that looks uncannily like Gifford’s — or perhaps the other way around.
Sheil’s attorneys write in a statement that she will be paying nothing for Gifford’s claims, and that in some of the instances where Gifford alleged copying, Sheil had actually taken her photos and videos first. In one example cited in the suit, in which the two women are posing in black leather jackets, Gifford said Sheil copied her post a few days later. Thomas Frashier, Sheil’s attorney, told The Verge that metadata proved Sheil had taken the photo five days before Gifford.
“I could have caved to Ms. Gifford’s demands, but this was a much larger fight and sets a precedent that young minority entrepreneurs will not allow ourselves to be bullied,” Sheil said in a statement provided by her lawyers. “Ms. Gifford attempted to intimidate me into leaving this industry. She failed miserably as the truth has prevailed today.” In an email follow up Sheil told The Verge that she plans to continue making Amazon-related content, saying she is ready to move forward. Sheil added that she had not heard from Amazon.
On TikTok, Gifford said she had decided to “walk away” from the lawsuit, citing the financial burden of going to trial and the time it would take to proceed with her case. One of her attorneys said in a statement that “settling this case allows [Gifford] to prioritize what matters most to her, so that to me is a win. And the court of public opinion can ultimately decide who was right and wrong here.”
The beige Amazon influencer dispute may be nearing a close, but the disputes at the heart of the case — who owns an online persona, whether influencer content is art, and what social media algorithms do to the aesthetic of the web — are as salient as ever. Social media is built on repetition and trends, and if you are a content creator, you must be ruthless in your optimization to break out from the pack. The same systems that give Gifford and Sheil their jobs also create the environment where two people can appear to live identical lives, hawking the same clothing, jewelry, and home goods to viewers stumbling upon their videos. Influencers becoming mirror images of each other is a feature, not a bug, of algorithmic tastemaking tuned for scale rather than unique identity. Gifford v. Sheil may be the high-profile example, but it certainly will not be the last.
The Insta360 Link 2 has dropped to a new all-time low price.
If you’re looking to upgrade your work-from-home setup, the Insta360 Link and Link 2 are gimbal-equipped 4K webcams packed with features to improve how you present in video calls. Now through June 8th, both are down to all-time low prices, with the original Link selling for $149.99 (typically priced at $179.99) at Amazon, B&H Photo, and Insta360’s online storefront. The newer Link 2, meanwhile, is on sale for $169.99 ($30 off) at Best Buy and B&H Photo, as well as Amazon thanks to an on-page coupon.
Each of these 4K/30fps cameras stand out thanks to having a 0.5-inch Sony sensor that’s mounted on a motorized, three-axis gimbal. This can help to keep you centered in the frame as you move around the room, while also letting you capture content from multiple angles with its useful software features, if you so choose. Their AI-powered framing tool, for example, can automatically zoom in on your head, upper body, or full body, depending on your distance from the webcam. They can also tilt slightly downward with the DeskView mode to highlight what’s on your desk, or tilt straight down for overhead mode. The whiteboard mode uses special stickers to identify (and remain locked on) to a whiteboard, making it perfect for presentations.
The aforementioned features are present in all Link webcams. However, the smaller, newer Link 2 model adds a couple of new upgrades, like a magnetic mount, more hand gesture controls, and group tracking to keep multiple presenters in the frame (the first-gen Link can only focus on one person at a time). Users can also now designate no-follow zones where the camera won’t track movement.
The unlocked Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus with 256GB of storage is on sale in select colors for $749.99 ($150 off) at Amazon and Best Buy, which is its best price to date. The S25 Plus features a 6.7-inch 120Hz display, which is larger and sharper than the standard model’s, plus it has a bigger battery that lasts all day. It’s otherwise similar to the S25, offering a robust IP68 dust and water resistance, a good camera system, and seven years of software updates. Read our review.
You can grab a five-pack of Anker’s USB-C to USB-C cables for $12.99 ($5 off) at Amazon, matching their all-time low price. Each six-foot cable supports up to 60W fast charging, making them great for powering phones, tablets, some laptops, and other USB-C devices, like the Nintendo Switch 2 and Steam Deck. They also feature a durable, tangle-resistant nylon-braided design that should be able to withstand everyday wear and tear better than your standard cable.
The M4-powered Mac Mini is on sale starting at $488.63 ($111 off) at Amazon, which is an all-time low price on the desktop computer. Despite being smaller than its predecessor, it’s more powerful and includes 16GB of RAM by default. It now supports up to three displays – up from two – and offers a solid port selection that still includes 3.5mm audio jack. So long as you don’t mind supplying your own monitor, keyboard, and mouse, it’s a great value at this price. Read our review.
Update, May 29th: Updated the post with additional retailer links.
Microsoft's combination of Xbox and Windows for handheld gaming PCs can't come soon enough. Windows on handhelds is in desperate need of some love, and Lenovo's Legion Go S is the best evidence yet that Microsoft has a big Windows-shaped problem it has to solve on any upcoming Xbox-branded handhelds.
YouTuber Dave2D managed to test the Legion Go S with the new SteamOS version alongside the existing Windows model. The hardware is exactly the same, but the operating systems are totally different, and the results are eye-opening. Games running on the SteamOS model perform better than the Windows version at low or medium settings, by around 5 to 10 percent. These are games that are made for Windows, but Valve's excellent Proton compatibility layer means they run better with the help of Linux and SteamOS.
The Legion Go S with SteamOS even beats Valve's Steam Deck performance, and you can get even better performance if you're willing to sacrifice the battery. Battery life on a handheld gaming PC is a massive part of the experience, and the SteamOS version of the Legion Go S just totally embarrasses the Windows model in Dave2D's tests.
In Dead Cells, at 60fps, the Legion Go S with Ste …
Fifteen Iranian students and researchers sued the Trump administration for completely halting student visa interviews while it determines whether to vet all visa applicants’ social media accounts.
The suit, filed against Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a Virginia federal court, claims that the pause on student visa interviews violates the Administrative Procedures Act, a law prohibiting capricious rule-making. The complaint is currently sealed.
In an email, Curtis Morrison and Hamdi Masri, lawyers for the students, noted that the State Department has required visa applicants to disclose their social media handles since May 2019. Visa applicants from certain Muslim-majority countries, including Iran, are already subject to “extensive social media vetting,” Masri said, adding that Trump seemed to want to “ensure students entering align with his political values.”
The students and researchers who brought the suit against Rubio were admitted to universities across the country — including Yale, Ohio State, and the University of South Florida — for graduate programs in computer science, engineering, finance, and other disciplines. Per their attorneys, each of the students had already attended visa interviews, but all of their applications are currently “awaiting national security vetting.” Some of the students were interviewed over a year ago.
The pause on student visa interviews is part of the Trump administration’s multi-pronged attack on universities and international students. On Wednesday, Rubio said the State Department would start working with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese Students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.” On May 22nd, DHS rescinded Harvard’s access to a federal database used to track foreign students’ enrollment, putting nearly 6,800 people enrolled at Harvard at risk of immediate deportation until a federal judge intervened.
Rubio has also suspended the visas of international students involved in pro-Palestine protests on campus. More recently, the State Department restricted visas of “foreign nationals who are responsible for censorship of protected speech in the United States,” i.e., regulators who enforce the European Union’s Digital Services Act.
Democratic senators are probing whether RealPage, a software company accused of colluding with landlords to raise rents, lobbied for a proposed ban on states regulating AI for the next decade. In a letter to RealPage CEO Dana Jones, five Democratic senators — Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Tina Smith (D-MN) — ask for more information about the company’s “potential involvement” in a provision attached to Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill, which bars state laws that impact AI or “automated decision” systems for 10 years.
The senators argue that the provision could scuttle attempts to stop RealPage from feeding sensitive information from groups of landlords into an algorithm and using it to recommend noncompetitive rental prices.
In 2022, a report from ProPublica linked RealPage to rising rent prices across the US, alleging that its algorithm allows landlords to coordinate pricing. The Department of Justice and eight states sued the company last year, claiming it “deprives renters of the benefits of competition on apartment leasing terms.” Meanwhile, cities like Minneapolis, Jersey City, Philadelphia, and San Francisco have passed laws meant to ban the use of rent-setting software, and several states, including Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, and Washington, have legislation in the works.
“Republicans are trying to give a green light to RealPage’s rent-hiking algorithm.”
As it stands, the senators argue the Republican budget reconciliation bill would block pending legislation and stop states from enforcing any regulation that puts limitations on RealPage’s rent-setting algorithm. The bill proposes preventing states from enforcing “any law or regulation” covering a broad range of automated computing systems, which would likely apply to the algorithms used by RealPage.
And while the moratorium’s most high-profile proponents are giants like OpenAI, lawmakers believe RealPage might have spent millions pushing for it too. “In light of this, we seek information on RealPage’s lobbying efforts, and on how the Republicans’ reconciliation provision would help the bottom line of RealPage and other large corporations by allowing them to take advantage of consumers,” the letter states.
The senators say RealPage “stepped up” its Congressional lobbying in response to local legislation that would affect its business. They cite a report from The Lever, which found that the National Multifamily Housing Council, a trade group that represents RealPage, increased its lobbying spending from $4.8 million in 2020 to $9 million in 2024. The Lever also found that the trade group disclosed that it lobbied on “issues surrounding the risks and opportunities posed by artificial intelligence,” as well as “federal policies affecting usage of data, artificial intelligence, software,” and other technology used in real estate.
“RealPage ramped up its million dollar spending campaign in Congress and lo and behold, Republicans in Congress passed a provision to block states from protecting renters,” Senator Warren told The Verge. “Americans are being squeezed by rising rents, but instead of helping, Republicans are trying to give a green light to RealPage’s rent-hiking algorithm.”
The Senators have asked RealPage how much money the company spent on Congressional lobbying in each year since 2020, as well as which firms and individuals it “engaged or contracted with” during the same period. They also want to know how much it spent on lobbying targeted toward AI legislation, as well as how RealPage would be impacted by the budget reconciliation bill in states with pending legislation on rent-setting software. The senators ask RealPage to respond by June 10th, 2025.
If passed, the bill — currently awaiting consideration in the Senate — could have far wider-ranging impacts than RealPage. In addition to blocking states from regulating AI chatbots, it could also affect any laws covering things like deepfakes, automated hiring systems, facial recognition, sentencing algorithms, and more.
Tiger Borgia, a content creator focused on cozy games, has been pulling weeds in Animal Crossing: New Horizons for over five years.
Given the current landscape in which game developers constantly release new updates to vie for the attention of audiences, Borgia's dedication to New Horizons can come across as admirable. Nintendo has not released a major update to New Horizons since the Happy Home Paradise DLC in 2021. (Just this week the game was patched in advance of the Switch 2.) The version of New Horizons Borgia plays today - the one where she pulls weeds and fishes each day - is more or less the same game that the company released in the spring of 2020.
At a time when seemingly every publisher is trying to capture a piece of the lucrative live-service boom, New Horizons showed Nintendo slowly inching its way into the space with more than a year's worth of regular updates after launch. And that expansion into live service is something that could become an even larger part of Nintendo's future with the Switch 2.
Speaking to The Verge, Borgia explains that two years ago she would have said yes to having more content in New Horizons, but her opinion has since changed. "Now I …
Today, I’m talking with Megan Greenwell, a former top editor at Wired and Deadspin, about her new book Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream. It comes out on June 10th, and it’s a searing account of how private equity goes far beyond impacting failing businesses and deeply affects and transforms the lives of everyday Americans.
Decoder is very much a show about the systems and frameworks that explain tech, policy, and business, and that means we’ve talked about private equity a number of times on the show. Private equity is everywhere across the business landscape, even though its massive influence on how so many companies operate is pretty hidden from view.
But once you see it, you start to notice it everywhere, and it’s incredibly validating to hear that so many people have had similar experiences with companies managed by private equity. I know this, because it’s in our numbers and the feedback we get here on Decoder — our 2023 episode with lawyer and author Brendan Ballou about his book on private equity, Plunder, is one of our most popular episodes.
Megan’s interest in private equity came from her experience as editor-in-chief of Deadspin, the famous and now-defunct sports and culture website. Deadspin was part of Gawker, and Gawker was taken over by a private equity firm called Great Hill Partners, which began to immediately micromanage Deadspin’s content. That was when Megan first realized that the goals and financial results of a private equity firm were very disconnected from the goals and financial results of the companies it had taken over.
Listen to Decoder, a show hosted by The Verge’s Nilay Patel about big ideas — and other problems. Subscribe here!
Megan’s book is a deep dive into the private equity industry, as expressed in four parts of the economy: retail, media, housing, and — maybe the most maddening of them all — healthcare. My family has a lot of doctors in it, and I’ve heard so much about how private equity has changed healthcare in the US. You’ll hear Megan connect the dots between the financialization of healthcare and the poor experiences many people have with healthcare today.
We also spent some time talking about the history of private equity, and the throughline from the New York City real estate world that gave birth to Donald Trump all the way to the private equity industry of today. I think you’ll find there is a surprising amount of history here that really does help explain not just how the incentives of finance have come to dominate the American way of life, but also how it’s seeped into the highest levels of the government. Perhaps most surprisingly, you’ll hear Megan take great pains to differentiate private equity from venture capital, which is very different — and with very different problems.
I always really enjoy talking to other editors, especially about something they’re so curious about. Let me know what you think about this one. I suspect you will have a lot to say.
If you’d like to read more on what we talked about in this episode, check out the links below:
Blink launched the second generation of its video doorbell this week.
Amazon’s budget security camera company, Blink, has launched the second generation of its popular video doorbell. The new Blink Video Doorbell adds a head-to-toe view and improved video resolution. It can also now alert you when a person is at your door instead of just the neighborhood cat or a strong gust of wind triggering its motion sensors. The doorbell camera comes with a new, more basic hub, the Sync Module Core, which, unlike the first-gen model, is required to use the buzzer.
Blink’s latest doorbell is still one of the cheapest on the market, costing $59.99 without the hub and $69.99 with it. The lowest-priced battery-powered buzzer from Ring, Blink’s sister brand, is $99, and it only claims six to 12 months of battery life compared to Blink’s industry-leading two years, powered by its custom silicon.
Upgrades on this version include an improved 150-degree field of view with a 1:1 aspect ratio. That should give you a head-to-toe view of your porch so you can see people and packages. The prior version, which is my pick for the best budget video doorbell, has a 16:9 aspect ratio. This buzzer also adds 1440p x 1440p image resolution, according to Jonathan Cohn, Blink’s head of product. This is a step up from 1080p, meaning footage should be clearer. There’s still no color night vision; it retains the infrared night vision of the first-gen model.
The biggest upgrade is the addition of person detection; the first-gen model sends alerts for any motion, but now you can be notified just when there’s a person at your door. This is powered by on-device computer vision, so it doesn’t require the cloud. But it does require a $3 per month ($30 per year) Blink subscription plan (which also adds 60 days of cloud storage for recorded video). Blink has slowly been bringing person detection to its lineup, adding it first to its wired floodlight camera, then its flagship outdoor camera, and its Blink Mini indoor / outdoor camera last year.
The new doorbell requires a Sync Module to work, Cohn says, and it now comes with the new Sync Module Core, rather than the Sync Module 2. This is something of a downgrade as the Core doesn’t have the local storage option that the Sync 2 offers. Cohn says the module helps extend battery life and range and enables on-demand live view and two-way audio. He confirmed that the new doorbell can work with the Sync 2 and the newer long-range Sync Module XR, if you already have one or if you want local storage.
The new buzzer features a slightly chunkier design to accommodate three AA lithium batteries as opposed to two in the first-gen version. The extra battery helps maintain the impressive two-year battery life while powering improved image quality and the addition of person detection, Cohn says. Blink is unique among security camera makers as it uses its own chip that’s optimized for power management, so while it doesn’t boast the higher-end features like those from Ring and Arlo, you don’t have to worry about dealing with charging or replacing its batteries as often. It can also be hardwired to main power, which allows the doorbell to work with an existing indoor chime.
Unfortunately, Blink chose not to upgrade the device’s Wi-Fi capabilities; it’s still limited to 2.4GHz. Motion-activated recording is also limited to just 30-second clips, and the two-way audio is push-to-talk, which is like using a walkie-talkie, as opposed to full duplex, which is more like a phone call and is what you’ll find on most other video doorbells.
Presumably, most of these limitations are designed to extend battery life, and Blink’s two years is still its standout feature; no other video doorbell on the market comes close. The addition of higher video quality and person detection, all for the same price, makes this a worthy upgrade.
The second-generation Blink Video Doorbell is available to buy now on Amazon for $69.99 with the Sync Module Core or $59.99 as a standalone device.
Nintendo has updated its Switch mobile app with new features and functionality for the Switch 2. | Screenshots: Nintendo Switch App
Nintendo released an update to its Switch Online mobile app yesterday renaming it to simply the Nintendo Switch App and adding support for the Switch 2, which releases on June 5th. Alongside Switch 2 support comes new features, first announced in early April, making it easier to access screenshots on other devices and adding mobile notifications for GameChat invitations.
The most useful update to the app is that the Switch 2 will be able to upload screenshots and videos to it through the cloud. The Switch 2’s album will have a new Upload to Smart Device option for manually sending screenshots, as well as an automatic uploads feature where the 100 most recent screenshots and videos on the console will be available in the app.
Files will be stored in the cloud for up to 30 days, Nintendo says, but can be downloaded from the app to a mobile device’s camera roll to be saved permanently. If you attempt to upload more than 100 screenshots and videos, the oldest screenshots will be overwritten. A free Nintendo Account is required to use the feature, but a paid Nintendo Switch Online membership is not.
Sharing screenshots from the original Switch was a more cumbersome process requiring a smartphone to scan a QR code on the console and then connect to a temporary Wi-Fi network to transfer the files wirelessly. The Nintendo Switch App will also let you see when you’ve been invited to a GameChat call and includes the Zelda Notes features for the Switch 2 editions of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Although not active in the app yet, the feature will include achievements, spoken directions to areas you mark on a map, and access to additional Princess Zelda recall memories.
The Nintendo Today app also received an update today with new features including the ability to link its calendar with your own calendar app so you can see upcoming Nintendo events and game release dates as part of your personal schedule. There’s also the option to favorite content and filter news so you only see what you’re interested in, and the app now lets you zoom in on images.
The New York Times has struck a multi-year AI licensing deal with Amazon that will bring its “editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences,” the outlet announced on Thursday. Under the agreement, Amazon will include summaries and short excerpts of The Times’ content in products like Alexa, and will also use Times articles to help train its AI models.
“The deal is consistent with our long-held principle that high-quality journalism is worth paying for,” Meredith Kopit Levien, the CEO of The New York Times Company, said in a note to staff at the Times. “It aligns with our deliberate approach to ensuring that our work is valued appropriately, whether through commercial deals or through the enforcement of our intellectual property rights.”
But I can't deny that the company's $20-a-month* GeForce Now is a near-perfect fit for the Steam Deck. I've been covering cloud gaming for 15 years, and this is the very first time I've wanted to keep playing indefinitely.
What is GeForce Now?
For the uninitiated, Nvidia's GeForce Now is a game streaming service that farms the graphical processing power out to the cloud. Instead of controlling a game running locally on your Steam Deck's chip, you're effectively remote-controlling an RTX 4080-powered* gaming rig in a server farm many miles away, which you sync with your existing Steam, Epic, Ubisoft, Xbox, and Battle.net accounts to access your games and savegames from the cloud.
*Nvidia's GeForce Now also technically has a free tier, and a "Performance" tier, but I recommend you ignore both. For me, it was the difference between playing many games through a clean window or a dirty window, the difference between playing Alan Wake II and Indiana Jones with full ray tracing or none at all, the di …
Google’s latest Drive features can give Workspace users more information about the videos they’ve saved. A Gemini AI feature that summarizes documents and PDFs in Google Drive is now expanding to video files, allowing users to gain insights about what’s in the video without having to watch it themselves.
The Gemini in Drive feature provides a familiar chatbot interface that can provide quick summaries describing the footage or pull specific information. For example, users can ask Gemini to list action items mentioned in recorded meetings or highlight the biggest updates and new products in an announcement video, saving time spent on manually combing through and taking notes.
The feature requires captions to be enabled for videos, and can be accessed using either Google Drive’s overlay previewer or a new browser tab window. It’s available in English for Google Workspace and Google One AI Premium users, and anyone who has previously purchased Gemini Business or Enterprise add-ons, though it may take a few weeks to fully roll out.
Google is also dropping another Workspace feature that shows engagement data for Drive videos. The Drive video player will now show how many times a video has been opened within the Analytics section of the Details panel, giving users some indication of how their clips are performing.
WhatsApp is developing a solution for users to take a break from the messaging service without nuking their account data. A new “Logout [internal]” option spotted in the WhatsApp 2.25.17.37 beta release by Android Authoritypresents users with the choice to sign out on their primary WhatsApp device while either retaining or erasing their app data and preferences.
For all intents and purposes, the only way that users can currently sign out of WhatsApp’s mobile app is to either wipe the app data from Android device settings or delete WhatsApp entirely on iOS. Linked devices running the web and desktop app versions of WhatsApp make it far easier by comparison, providing a clear log out button under the user profile.
The new Logout button is located in WhatsApp’s user settings below the account deletion button. The “Erase all Data & preferences” option does exactly that, according to Android Authority, while the “Keep all Data & preferences” option is better for taking some temporary respite from the service, or for users without dual-SIM devices who need to switch accounts, as the account will be exactly as it was left when you sign back in.
It isn’t clear when (or if) this developmental feature will be rolled out to the public, or if it will be available on both Android and iOS, given each currently has a different logout process. We have asked Meta for more information.
Driving a 2026 Ioniq 9 SUV around the Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant in Georgia can feel like a victory lap for the South Korean automaker. Hyundai's electric flagship carves out room for three America-centric rows of seats, from a booming brand whose EVs and hybrids already make up one in every four US sales.
Even better, the Ioniq 9 and smaller Ioniq 5 are emerging from a futuristic new factory in America, giving Hyundai a defensible bulwark against the tariffs and onshoring fervor of Donald Trump's administration. As I watch these electric SUVs roll off a surgically clean assembly line, Hyundai's opportunistic timing looms as large as the hulking robots that help build its cars.
A tour of the $7.6 billion factory also underlines how many automakers are plowing ahead with long-laid EV plans, regardless of Category 5 Washington winds that threaten to blow away Joe Biden-era support for EV manufacturing, consumer tax credits, and public charging.
Hyundai's opportunistic timing looms as large as the hulking robots that help build its cars
Musk waves goodbye to the Trump administration after four months of government meddling.
Elon Musk’s official role within the United States government is coming to an end. The billionaire Tesla CEO announced his White House departure in an X post on Wednesday night, thanking President Donald Trump for the opportunity to “reduce wasteful spending” by leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government,” Musk wrote, saying that his position as a special government employee was coming “to an end.”
Musk’s departure was expected. He had announced plans earlier this month to step away from government and spend “a lot less” on US political campaigns, having invested nearly $300 million into Trump’s Presidential run. He’s also pledged to spend more time on Tesla, with his controversial political stint having likely contributed to the EV maker’s spiralling sales. The role of special government employee also comes with a 130-day time limit — a deadline that was fast approaching if DOGE’s establishment on January 20th is considered Musk’s start date.
A White House official told Reuters that Musk was being off-boarded on Wednesday night. The publication reports that Musk didn’t formally discuss his departure with Trump before announcing it on X, and that his exit was decided “at a senior staff level.”
Musk is parting ways with the Trump administration a day after criticizing the President’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” in an interview with CBS, saying the landmark tax legislation would increase the federal deficit and undermine his cost-cutting efforts at DOGE. During Trump’s campaign, Musk initially pledged that DOGE would cut at least $2 trillion in federal spending before later slashing its targets to $1 trillion and then $150 billion. The DOGE website currently claims to have saved $175 billion, but that figure should be taken with a fistful of salt given previous exaggerations.
