The Technology Partener
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…
For the first time since the iPhone’s debut in 2007, Apple no longer sells a smartphone with a home button. The iPhone 16E announced yesterday removes it. The removal was long overdue, having been surpassed by all touchscreen controls many years ago. But while the home button’s time is over, it leaves behind an important…
My high school English teacher drilled into my head that there was a proper way to read a book: “If you’ve read a book without taking notes, you’ve not read it at all.” She had a point — taking notes helps me engage with the material in a much deeper way than just reading. Nowadays,…
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 65, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, get ready to take up all your phone’s storage space, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This is the last Installer of the year! I’m…
There’s a new voice assistant in town, and this one can work locally in your home without phoning home to its corporate overloads. This week, the popular hobbyist smart home platform Home Assistant officially launched its first voice assistant hardware — Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition. Built for the open-source smart home platform, Voice PE…
Whenever Verge staff is asked to describe their favorite games, smart tech, desktop accessories, or whatever, they are free to talk about things they recently bought, things they picked up 10 years ago, or things they’ve had sitting around their house for decades. Inevitably, though, some of the items have popped up in Black Friday sales….
2024 has been a stressful year. Other people might pick more relaxing ways to de-stress — a spa day, a nice cocktail, or maybe a social media detox. Not me, baby. I’ve decided to cope the same way I always do: ramping up training instead of stress eating my weight in mini-muffins. Except it’s unreasonable…
It’s hard to know where to focus when speaking to Christoph Kohstall. The contents of his packed Palo Alto garage compete for attention. To his immediate right stands a tower of electrical components, dotted with flashing lights. To his left is a workbench and the tops of machining tools. A red industrial girder runs along…
On Wednesday, some Harvard students made headlines by outfitting a pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses with facial recognition. The DIY project is the latest piece of news to stoke privacy concerns around the ubiquitous technology. As cameras become increasingly prevalent in society, the issue has grown in importance. Connectivity has a big role in this…
Glass front doors are great for letting light in during the day but not so great when you want privacy at night. The Home Depot has a smart solution for this problem — a glass front door that can switch from clear to opaque on a schedule, with a voice command, or by pressing a…
