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Several companies, including iRobot, have announced updates and support for Apple Home through Matter. | Image: iRobot The release of  Apple’s iOS 18.4 on Monday includes good news for robot vacuum owners. The update includes support for controlling robot vacuums and adding them to automations and scenes in the Apple Home app via the Matter protocol. With the official rollout of iOS 18.4, companies like Roborock, iRobot, and Ecovacs are introducing firmware updates so their robovacs will be fully compatible with Apple Home. Roborock’s firmware update “enhances the implementation of the Matter protocol across several of its premium robot vacuum models,” according to a press release from the company. Roborock models that will be getting this expanded Matter support include the S8 MaxV Ultra , Saros Z70 , Saros 10, Saros 10R, Qrevo Curv, Qrevo Edge, and Qrevo Master. Roborock says the supported models will receive the firmware update sometime between April 1st and April 10th, al...

Microsoft is making its AI features widely available on Copilot Plus PCs equipped with Intel and AMD chips. One of the most notable of these features will be Live Captions, which translates audio to English subtitles from dozens of different languages in real time. Microsoft first started testing Live Captions on Intel and AMD devices last December, and it’s now available through the latest Windows 11 update. The update also includes Cocreator, an AI tool in Paint that creates an image based on a text description and what you’re currently drawing. On top of that, Microsoft is also expanding access to its AI image editor and generator in the Photos app. These features were previously only available on Copilot Plus PCs with Qualcomm chips. Microsoft started testing Recall, an AI feature that takes screenshots of your activity on a Copilot Plus PC and lets you search through them, with Intel and AMD devices last year, though there’s still no word when it will become widely availab...

The simple contraption quickly attaches to both buttons and rocker switches. Smart plugs are great, but unfortunately, they can’t automate everything . Thankfully, there is a cheap cube-like contraption called the SwitchBot Bot that can add a touch of modern functionality to your garage door, light switch, and other traditional devices. It would normally run you $29.99, but right now you can buy it directly from SwitchBot for just $20.99 ($9 off) using promo code BKLP15 or at Amazon for $22.49 (about $8 off) if you’re a Prime member. SwitchBot’s smart switch button pusher is incredibly easy to set up: just use the included tape to mount it to a standard button or rocker switch, which will let you use your phone to control devices you would typically turn on and off via a button. It works with compatible garage door openers and light switches, along with coffee makers, rice cookers, pet feeders, monitors, laundry machines, and other button-based gadgets. It also lets you create ...

Some Hollywood studios are reportedly earning money from fake AI-generated movie trailers on YouTube, against the wishes of the union representing actors. According to a report from Deadline , Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, and Sony Pictures redirected ad revenue to themselves instead of enforcing copyright protections and shutting down the popular Screen Culture and KH Studio trailer accounts. In response, the SAG-AFTRA union has criticized the studios for profiting off videos that use AI to exploit their members’ likenesses without permission. Fanmade trailers are nothing new, but AI video generators like OpenAI’s Sora and Google’s Veo have made it easier than ever for anyone to make artificially generated content. YouTube is becoming saturated with AI-generated slop that studios could tackle by issuing copyright strikes against offending accounts, but that would prevent them from monetizing the views on this new influx of content.  Screen Culture has 1.4 million subsc...

The official unveiling of the Switch 2 was an incredibly confident moment for Nintendo. It was brief and lacking almost entirely in details. There was no price, no release date, and no confirmed games outside of a Mario Kart tease . The 2 in the name implied a bigger and better Switch, but when it came to the how — the chips that will power the device, the screen that will make Zelda and Mario look great — Nintendo deemed it wasn’t important enough to share right away. And it’s right: unlike the rest of the industry, Nintendo has carved out a path where specs no longer matter. It wasn’t always this way. Previous Nintendo consoles were sold, as their contemporaries were, on horsepower. The Super Nintendo was a more-powerful NES, while the N64’s processor was deemed so important that the system was named after it. But things started to change around the time of the GameCube. Nintendo had experienced a steady decline in console sales over subsequent generations; while the...

The Z Flip 7 FE’s cover screen looks identical to the Flip 5 and Flip 6’s. The big difference between Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 7 and the cheaper Z Flip 7 FE will be their cover screens, going by new renders released by the leaker OnLeaks. Earlier this month he produced designs that show a new, larger cover screen on the flagship Flip 7 , but our first look at the more affordable “Fan Edition” instead includes Samsung’s older display design. The Z Flip 7 FE seems to use the same cover screen design as the Z Flip 5 and 6 , with a thick bezel and a stepped bottom edge that cuts around the camera lenses. By contrast, our latest look at the Z Flip 7 shows an edge-to-edge display that wraps around the cameras, similar to the screens on Motorola’s Razr Plus models . According to OnLeaks — who created the renders in conjunction with SammyGuru based on leaked details — the display will be the same 3.4-inch size as on the Z Flip 6. At 165.1 x 71.7 x 7.4mm when unfolded, the ph...

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 77, your guide to the best and Verge -iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, don’t forget to make your Venmo private, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage .) This week, I’ve been reading about RISC and Ben Affleck and Google’s new search boss , installing a SodaStream because my can situation is getting out of control, binge-watching How I Met Your Mother along with the new rewatch pod , watching Dead Talents Society after my colleagues raved about it, reliving a decade of great music through one Benny Blanco interview , enjoying a huge uptick in new friends on Signal , and doing a lot of retro racing in New Star GP . I also have for you a terrific new Apple TV Plus show, a deep dive into fax machines, the internet’s favorite new AI plaything, and much more. Kind of a light week this week, honestly, but still lots to dig into. Let’s do it. (As always, the best part of Installer ...

A Tesla Cybertruck drives past protestors during a Tesla Takedown, a nationwide peaceful protest movement, at a Tesla Showroom in the Coral Gables neighborhood on Saturday, March 29, 2025 in Miami. | Photo by Eva Marie Uzcategui / The Verge Thousands of anti-Tesla protesters took to the streets Saturday March 29th in opposition to Elon Musk and his efforts with DOGE to eliminate humanitarian aid, close federal agencies, and fire government workers. It was the culmination of nearly two months of steady, almost daily demonstrations aimed at hurting Tesla’s sales — and ultimately Musk himself. Today was billed as a “Global Day of Action†with protests targeting hundreds of Tesla locations in the US, Canada, and Europe. The Verge wanted to check the temperature and see how these protesters were thinking about this current moment, and whether they felt their boycott was having its desired effect. Tesla sales have slid significantly since the protests started, and its stock ...

Samaung’s new Bespoke AI Jet Ultra cordless stick vacuum has an AI cleaning mode that senses floor types and automatically adjusts suction power and brush speed. In our notification-heavy world, there is still one activity where you might just miss that buzz on your phone or ping on your smartwatch – while you’re vacuuming. Thankfully, Samsung has a solution.  Its newest cordless stick vac, the new Bespoke AI Jet Ultra ($1,099), now has an LCD display control panel that, along with standard features such as power level and battery life, can notify you when you have an incoming phone call or text message. The vacuum, which works with an auto-empty charging station, also features 400AW suction and 100-minute battery life. Even better, if you’re doing the wash and left your phone in the other room, Samsung’s added touchscreens to its washers and dryers , including the new Bespoke AI Laundry Vented Combo washer / dryer ($3,099). This lets you answer a call directly on the built-...

Whenever  Verge  staffers are asked to describe their smart tech, office tools, kitchen gadgets, or whatever else, they talk about things they recently bought, things they picked up 10 years ago, or things they’ve had sitting around their house for decades. We’ve gathered a few of the items that our staffers have enthused about in the past that they use for charging, repairing, listening, cooking, gardening, and parenting, and that are now discounted as part of Amazon’s Big Spring Sale. Just in case you’d like to check them out. Kitchen help After realizing we’re not a family who likes to get their hands dirty while cooking (we leave that part to mixers and blenders), an automatic soap dispenser has become one of the most used devices in our kitchen. We opted for a  cheap $25 option from Amazon  that lets you adjust how much foaming soap is dispensed and lasts for a couple of months between charges, but companies like Simplehuman sell pricier  $80 versions...

Halfway through its first season, Apple’s Mythic Quest threw a wild curveball with “A Dark Quiet Death†— an unexpectedly dramatic episode that chronicled the rise and fall of another video game development team. “ A Dark Quiet Death †was the first instance of Mythic Quest switching up its comedic formula to tell an earnest story about what makes people fall in love with games. And since then, every season of Mythic Quest has featured a backstory episode that felt emblematic of the series’ narrative strengths. Side Quest , Apple TV Plus’ new Mythic Quest spinoff miniseries, feels a lot like a collection of “A Dark Quiet Deathâ€-style episodes as it introduces a slew of new characters (and brings back a couple of veterans) whose lives have all been touched by one of the world’s most popular games. When I recently spoke with Side Quest ’s co-creators, Ashly Burch, John Howell Harris, and Katie McElhenney, they told me that the new show’s stylistic similariti...

YouTube is switching off some push notifications for channels with frequent uploads in a new test that might make you miss alerts you’ve signed up for. The latest test announced by the official TeamYouTube community targets channels that users have notifications set to “all” for, but often don’t open those notifications. The test won’t turn off notifications for channels that don’t upload frequently, as TeamYouTube member Rob noted: Viewers who haven’t recently engaged with a channel despite having been sent recent push notifications will not receive push notifications in the experiment. Notifications will still be available via the notification inbox in the YouTube app.  Channels that upload infrequently will not have their notifications affected. Actively engaged viewers with push notifications enabled on their device will continue to receive them. (No change) It’s not clear whether users will have any indication that they’re missing notifications, and it doesn’t seem n...

Google will pay $100 million to settle a class action lawsuit accusing the company of charging for clicks on ads placed outside the geographic locations selected by advertisers, as reported earlier by Reuters . The proposed settlement was filed in a California court on Thursday and still requires approval by a judge. The lawsuit, first filed in 2011, centers around Google Adwords — now called Google Ads — and claimed Google broke California’s Unfair Competition law by misleading advertisers about the locations it would show their ads. It also alleged Google didn’t follow through on its promise to provide “Smart Pricing” discounts. “This case was about ad product features we changed over a decade ago and we’re pleased it’s resolved,” Google spokesperson José Castañeda said in an emailed statement to The Verge . Google has even bigger legal challenges with a federal antitrust lawsuit that could force it to sell Chrome. It also faced trial over the DOJ’s other lawsuit that accused i...

Both the new 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Airs are on sale despite the fact they came out in March. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto Editor’s note: Amazon’s Big Spring Sale has arrived. Lucky for you, we’ve already sifted through the deluge of discounts to find the best deals available on Verge -approved gadgets and gear. Apple currently sells MacBooks equipped with its own M-series chips in a wide range of sizes and price points. It discontinued the M1 MacBook Air to make room for last year’s models, but some retailers are still selling the last-gen laptop starting at $649 — a far cry from the $2,499 starting price of the latest 16-inch MacBook Pro with M4 Pro . Purchasing a new MacBook can certainly be a pricey endeavor, but thankfully, finding a deal on more recent models is actually not that difficult. Apple has recently shaken up the starting RAM for several models, creating more options than ever before and resulting in steeper discounts on older models.   The ...

I admire birds as much as the next person, but taking up birdwatching isn’t something I’ve considered. I don’t have the patience, nor do I own a good pair of binoculars — which is necessary for seeing the majestic, winged creatures up close. What I might sooner settle on, however, is the Bird Buddy Pro, a smart bird feeder with an integrated camera that can give you a much, much closer look at birds as they munch (and identify them using AI). Normally $299.99, the video-equipped feeder is matching its all-time low of $199 at Amazon as part of its Big Spring Sale , which runs through March 31st. If not to satisfy your own desire to be a proverbial fly on the wall of a bird feeder, the Bird Buddy Pro could be a fantastic gift as well. We’ve got Mother’s Day coming up, though I consider this a good gift for anyone looking to ring in the shift to spring, as leaves come to life and flowers bloom. Bird activity will soon soar, making it the perfect time to try something like this out. Yo...

Choose your foldable fighter. A foldable phone isn’t for the faint of heart. They’re generally heavier, pricier, and have less capable cameras than a standard slab-style phone. And while they’re far less fragile than when they first debuted, foldables are still susceptible to the kind of damage a regular smartphone can shrug off. You really don’t want any dust getting in that hinge. But if you’re an adventurous sort of gadget lover, then a folding phone is a rewarding investment.  There are basically two kinds of foldables at the moment — the kind that fold like books and the ones that fold clamshell style, like your old flip phone. Here’s how I think of it: a book-style foldable is like a phone plus a tablet , and a flip-style foldable is a phone plus a smartwatch. The book foldables provide an outer screen for all your regular phone needs, and then a tablet-like inner screen when you want, well, more screen. Flip phones come with a smaller secondary display on the outer pa...