The Verge

Source: The Verge 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…

Source: The Verge The first season of Dune: Prophecy is about to wrap up — but there’s more on the way. Ahead of the finale on December 22nd, HBO has confirmed than the prequel series has been renewed for a second season. The show premiered in November, and takes place 10,000 years before the events…

Source: The Verge Google Keep is being upgraded to a system app on Android 16 devices, joining the ranks of other Android apps that provide essential services like calling and messaging, reports Android Police. Google’s free note-taking app appears as a system app on the latest Android 16 beta, Android 16 Developer Preview 2. Anyone…

Source: The Verge There has been some initial pushback on it. A photographer on Threads complained that “there will be a small watermark-like credit on the photo, but there won’t be a link back to your account.” Curious, I tried out the new feature, went to see if there was indeed no link back to…

Source: The Verge Thousands of delivery drivers who work for Amazon third-party contractors are now on strike, The New York Times reports. The workers are striking after “Amazon’s repeated refusal to follow the law and bargain with the thousands of Amazon workers who organized with the Teamsters,” according to a Teamsters press release. Workers are…

Source: The Verge With the holiday season in full effect, you can expect a fresh stream of Christmas noobs entering your multiplayer lobbies. If you’re on an Xbox or PC and looking to keep the pressure on during ruthless initiation rites, the Xbox Elite Series 2 Wireless Gaming Controller can help maximize your effectiveness. It’s…

Source: The Verge In a post on X, Google DeepMind chief scientist Jeff Dean says the model is “trained to use thoughts to strengthen its reasoning,” and also benefits from the speed that comes along with the faster Gemini Flash 2.0 model. The demo shared by Dean shows how Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking goes about…

Source: The Verge We test a wide variety of laptops each year here at The Verge, and many of them are very good. But you can’t buy them all. So we’ve done the very difficult (very difficult, trust us) task of selecting some of the best laptops you can get. Whether you’re looking for a…

Source: The Verge Variety is reporting that Paramount Pictures is planning to extend the Sonic The Hedgehog trilogy by yet another movie. Sonic The Hedgehog 4 has been greenlit with a target release window of spring 2027. The news comes mere hours before Sonic The Hedgehog 3 releases in theaters on Friday December 19th. The…

Source: The Verge 8BitDo has announced an alternate version of its Ultimate C wired Xbox controller that’s 20 percent smaller and 10 percent lighter while still featuring full-sized triggers, joysticks, and buttons. The joysticks and buttons on the Ultimate Mini are all closer to each other, but the same size as on a standard Xbox…