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The pint-sized Sonos Roam 2 is more over 20 percent this weekend

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Sonos is no stranger to the occasional sale. The iconic audio company routinely runs sales around Black Friday, Amazon Prime Day, and the Super Bowl, though it’s rare to see substantial discounts on its portable speakers outside of tentpole shopping events. Fortunately, if you have no interest in the Sonos Move 2 or forthcoming Sonos Play , the Sonos Roam 2 is currently available from Amazon , Walmart , and Sonos for $139 ($40 off), which is just $5 shy of its lowest price to date. Sonos Roam 2 Where to Buy: $179 $139 at Amazon $179 $139 at Sonos $179 $139 at Walmart The original Sonos Roam was by no means a bad speaker, but the quality-of-life updates on the Roam 2 are genuinely meaningful, particularly if you were the kind of person who constantly struggled to pair the first-gen model with anything via Bluetooth (guilty as charged). The latest Roam has a dedicated pairing button on the back — meaning you don’t have to hold down the power button for a set period of...

Online age checks came first — a VPN crackdown could be next

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This is The Stepback , a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more news about online age verification and your privacy, follow Emma Roth . The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here . How it started Virtual private networks, or VPNs, weren't always used to access region-locked Netflix streams, bypass censorship online, or to prevent your internet service provider (ISP) from tracking your browsing history. It took years for VPNs to become the technology we know today, which provides an encrypted connection between your device and a private server, while conce … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/6lKRD8y

Halide co-founder is suing former partner for bringing source code to Apple

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Halide running on an iPhone. | Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge Lux Optics co-founder Sebastiaan de With made headlines when he joined Apple in late January. The company was behind Halide , one of the most popular photography apps for the iPhone, which gained a cult following for its robust pro-level controls. Apple was apparently a big enough fan that it tried to acquire the developer last summer. Those talks never bore fruit, and eventually the company simply hired de With. At the time, it was widely believed that Apple had poached him from Lux. But new allegations from a lawsuit filed by co-founder Ben Sandofsky in the California Superior Court of Santa Cruz claim de With was fired for financial misc … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/YgQ6dDk

Future Sony PlayStation games will use AI to imagine new frames

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Mark Cerny, the lead architect of the PlayStation 5 and PS5 Pro, told Digital Foundry that ML-based frame generation tech is coming to "PlayStation platforms" in the future, letting the game console use AI to imagine new frames between the ones it's actually rendering, which can create smoother perceived image quality while (typically) introducing some amount of lag. At least, that's how it works on PCs, where critics call them "fake frames." It's not clear whether Cerny means he'll bring it to the PS5 Pro , which just got better AI upscaling with an upgraded PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) technique, or whether it'll have to w … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/0lQxzEe

This is Microsoft’s plan to fix Windows 11

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Microsoft has faced a breakdown of trust in Windows 11 and a backlash over AI additions to its operating system in recent months. After promising to rebuild trust in Windows earlier this year, Microsoft's Windows chief, Pavan Davuluri, is now revealing the company's plan to fix Windows 11 - and there are a lot of changes on the way. "Over the past several months, the team and I have spent a great deal of time analyzing your feedback," says Davuluri in a blog post committing to Windows quality improvements. "What came through was the voice of people who care deeply about Windows and want it to be better." Windows 11 will start with a first … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/AtJ0RVf

The coolest game controller for your phone is $50 off

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The MCON includes an adhesive-backed ring for phones that aren’t MagSafe- or Pixelsnap-ready. | Image: OhSnap The MCON is the closest to a Swiss army knife that a controller can be. No, it doesn’t contain a can opener, but it makes up for it with a surprising array of features. Once you attach your MagSafe- or Pixelsnap-ready phone to the top plate, pressing a button along its top edge satisfyingly pops your phone up to reveal a full suite of controls, including TMR sticks made by GameSir. The MCON launched for $150, but you can get it for $99.99 through its manufacturer, OhSnap — the same amount that backers paid for the “super early bird” discount during the MCON’s 2025 Kickstarter campaign. OhSnap MCON controller Where to Buy: $149.99 $99.99 at OhSnap I only recently received an MCON controller for testing, but it didn’t take long to appreciate that its button layout is a bit more ergonomically-friendly than other phone controllers I’ve tried. I’m also a fan of the MCO...

A rogue AI led to a serious security incident at Meta

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For almost two hours last week, Meta employees had unauthorized access to company and user data thanks to an AI agent that gave an employee inaccurate technical advice, as previously reported by The Information . Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton said in a statement to The Verge that "no user data was mishandled" during the incident. A Meta engineer was using an internal AI agent, which Clayton described as "similar in nature to OpenClaw within a secure development environment," to analyze a technical question another employee posted on an internal company forum. But the agent also independently publicly replied to the question after analyzin … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/HUvWAFi