A chatbot could help prevent eating disorders, new study finds

Photo illustration by Mairo Cinquetti/NurPhoto via Getty Images

A chatbot may help reduce the likelihood a person develops an eating disorder, according to a new study. For women at a high risk for an eating disorder, going through a dialogue with a bot developed by researchersreduced concern over body weight and shape — a factor that contributes to their risk.

Previous research showed that digital prevention programs are more effective when they’re guided by a human moderator, says study author Ellen Fitzsimmons-Craft, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. But it’s hard to get funding in the United States for programs that prevent mental health conditions. The team thought a chatbot could be a cheaper, more scaleable version of such a...

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Apple’s Smart Keyboard for the latest iPad is a great deal at $105

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge

If you own Apple’s ninth Gen iPad, or the previous-gen iPad Air (pre-USB-C days), this Smart Keyboard is compatible — and selling for just about its lowest price yet at Woot. Normally $150 or so at most other retailers, you can snag this snap-on keyboard that covers your iPad’s screen when it’s not in use for just $104.99. This accessory also works with the seventh- and eighth-gen iPads, as well as the 10.5-inch iPad Pro from 2017.

This is a good price, and it comes with a one-year warranty through Apple. Though, it’s possible that you might want a keyboard for your iPad that offers a trackpad, too. Don’t worry, those exist, and buying one won’t cost you much more than this Smart Keyboard. Brydge’s $129.99 10.2 Max Plus keyboard case...

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BMW shows off huge 31-inch in-car screen to keep backseat passengers entertained

Image: BMW

BMW has revealed a new in-car technology it’s calling Theatre Screen at this year’s CES. It’s not clear when or if this massive 31-inch, 32:9 display will be made available to consumers, but BMW suggests it can be fitted somehow into the ceiling of luxury cars, descending to transform the back seats into a “private cinema lounge.”

The screen itself has an 8K resolution of roughly 8000 x 2000 and can play content with a 16:9, 21:9, or 32:9 aspect ratio. It’s running Amazon’s Fire OS operating system, which means it should have access to most modern video streaming services and other Fire TV apps that can stream over the car’s own 5G connection. It’s a touchscreen display, and there are also small touchpad controls built into the rear...

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Pete Buttigieg wants vision tests for self-driving cars

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

The US secretary of transportation wants to talk about innovation, infrastructure, and electric vehicles — but not about Tesla

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Let’s give ‘em something to Taco ‘bout

Ten bucks could get you 30 tacos. | Image: Taco Bell

Taco Bell has announced a subscription that lets you redeem one taco per day for 30 days, and it’s called the Taco Lover’s Pass. The way it works is simple: you pay $10 for the pass in Taco Bell’s app and get access to a secret menu that lets you pick which taco you’ll like to redeem at a participating location. You’ll be able to get a single taco per day and can choose from the:

• Crunchy Taco
• Crunchy Taco Supreme
• Soft Taco
• Soft Taco Supreme
• Spicy Potato Soft Taco
• Doritos Locos Tacos
• Doritos Locos Tacos Supreme

(We at The Verge had a lot of thoughts about this program, and we’ll get to those shortly. But first, let me just say that I find this a little insulting, economically speaking — the Doritos Locos Taco Supreme costs $2.69 at my...

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Target is selling PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles right now

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

For those who have yet to nab a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X, today Target is giving you another shot. The retailer listings are live for the $499.99 PS5 with a disc drive, the $399.99 PS5 Digital Edition, and the $499.99 Xbox Series X. Target does their restocks early in the morning, where listings come online and read as “Sold out” before they go live and the Add to Cart button appears — which is any moment now.

To make sure you have the best chance at landing the console, make sure you’re signed into your Target account, with preloaded payment information, and double-check that your billing and shipping address is current. All of these steps won’t guarantee you’ll be able to get a console, but it will certainly reduce the time it...

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Intel announces 5.5Ghz capable 12th Gen CPU

Screenshot: Intel

After teasing the news earlier this week, Intel has officially announced a new 12th-gen desktop CPU that’s capable of boosting to 5.5GHz on a single core out of the box. The news came during Intel’s CES 2022 presentation, when it said the KS-series desktop processor would be shipping later this quarter, but there was no mention of pricing.

Tom’s Hardware notes that the full name of the chip is the Core i9-12900KS, with the “S’’ suffix suggesting that it’ll be a limited edition. As well as hitting a maximum of 5.5GHz on a single core (a 300MHz improvement over what we saw with the i9-12900K), an onstage demonstration of the new CPU powering Hitman 3 showed the processor running at a sustained 5.2GHz across all its performance cores. No...

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Samsung’s Galaxy S22 lineup takes shape in unofficial leaks

From left to right, the Galaxy S22 Ultra, S22 Plus, and S22. | Screenshot: Unbox Therapy

A video from Unbox Therapy has shown off what appears to be three dummy units of Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S22 series of phones, giving an early look at the design of the handsets. Although the video has now been delisted, it’s been reuploaded on other channels, and a screenshot was taken by 9to5Google. The video emerged alongside other details of the upcoming phones, including camera specs, and images of a new fast charger.

This isn’t the first time footage of Galaxy S22 dummy units has leaked online. Twitter leaker OnLeaks posted similar footage in the middle of last month. Unbox Therapy’s video appears to corroborate these previous designs, and also shows the handsets more clearly.

Well, OK... #Samsung#GalaxyS22#GalaxyS22Plus#...

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Black + Decker’s $300 Bev vacuums up a Keurig-shaped hole in the robot bartender space

What if instead of coffee, your Keurig dispensed alcoholic drinks? Well, Keurig actually made a gadget like that — a $300 cocktail-making pod machine called the Drinkworks Home Bar that turned disposable pods into cold beverages. Only Keurig and Anheuser-Busch mysteriously shut down that venture just three weeks ago, going so far as to appoint a settlement administrator to offer refunds. Which leaves a perfect space in the market for a competitor to step in: Black & Decker of dustbuster, power tool and small kitchen appliance fame.

The $300 Black + Decker Bev is coming this spring with what might be the most practical (and ugly) take on the robot bartender yet. Unlike everycompetitorI couldfind on the web, it literally looks like a...

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AMC Networks’ Sentai acquisition is the latest sign that anime is big business

As part of the deal, AMC Networks will own the anime streaming service Hidive, which has_Lupin the 3rd._ | Image: Sentai

AMC Networks (not the movie theater chain) has acquired the anime distributor Sentai from the Cool Japan Fund investment fund, the company announced Wednesday. As a result of the deal, AMC Networks will now own the anime-focused streaming service Hidive, which will join the company’s roster of targeted streaming services that already includes AMC Plus, Acorn TV, Shudder, Sundance Now, and ALLBLK. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

The acquisition is the latest signal of the growing importance of anime content to entertainment companies. Perhaps the most notable anime push was Sony’s $1.175 billion purchase of anime streaming service Crunchyroll from AT&T, which brought Crunchyroll and another anime streaming giant, Funimation, under...

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HBO Max is doing great, according to HBO Max

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

AT&T’s latest subscriber figures make it seem like HBO and its sister service HBO Max are doing pretty well — great, even! In a regulatory filing this week, AT&T revealed that it beat its projected year-end goal with 73.8 million total subscribers between HBO and HBO Max (even after its breakup with Amazon). Not too bad, right?

But that win comes after a year of highly anticipated movie debuts meant to balloon subscriber numbers, and it’s still tens of millions of subscribers behind rivals like Disney Plus and Netflix. The numbers also come with some pretty big caveats. In other words, hold the applause.

For one, AT&T’s figures (earlier reported by Variety) conflate two separate services — HBO, its cable business, and HBO Max, its...

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TikTok’s latest deal could mean its videos are coming to waiting room TVs near you

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

TikTok has already conquered our phones and TVs at home, but its next target will ensure you really can’t escape from cute pet videos, impressive feats, and oddly satisfying clips. According to a report from TechCrunch, the popular short-form video platform has partnered with Atmosphere, a startup that drums up the content to ambiently play in the background when you’re eating at a restaurant, lounging in a hotel, or sitting in a waiting room.

Atmosphere already delivers content to places like Taco Bell, Texas Roadhouse, Burger King, and even Meineke, letting clients choose from a number of “channels” that suit different environments. And now, TikTok will get a channel dedicated to curated videos from the platform.

Atmosphere essentially...

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Apple’s Fraggle Rock reboot looks like it will stay true to the original series

Image: Apple

Apple released a new trailer for its upcoming Fraggle Rock Apple TV Plus reboot on Wednesday (officially titled Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock), and it seems like the new series will be bringing back all of the hallmarks of the original show. The new trailer features charming puppets, a catchy song, and a dumb joke to kick things off that I actually found kind of funny, and you can watch it all here. The 13-episode series debuts on January 21st.

Apple TV Plus has become something of a destination for Fraggle Rock. In April 2020, the company debuted the first in a series of shorts called Fraggle Rock: Rock On!, and in May 2020, it acquired past seasons of the original show. (Seems like someone over at Apple is a Fraggle Rock fan. Maybe...

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Sundance Film Festival goes virtual, Grammys postponed over omicron concerns

Photo by Jeff Schear/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Both the Grammy Awards and the Sundance Film Festival have changed their 2022 plans due to a rise in COVID-19 cases across the country (via CNBC and Indiewire). The Grammy Awards show has been postponed until further notice, and the Sundance Film Festival will go virtual, rather than risk an in-person event.

The Grammy Awards was postponed last year because of the pandemic

The 64th Grammy Awards ceremony was scheduled for January 31st, but as noted in a post on the Grammy Awards website, CBS and the Recording Academy have decided to push it back “after careful consideration and analysis with city and state officials, health and safety experts.” There isn’t mention of a rescheduled date, but CBS and the Recording Academy say that “will be...

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Dead By Daylight drops Leatherface cosmetics after reports of harassment against Black players

Behaviour Interactive, developer of co-op survival horror game Dead By Daylight, has decided to remove certain cosmetics from the game after years of complaints that they were being used in racist harassment against Black players. Announced as part of a developer update, the cosmetics will be removed in a forthcoming patch, and players who have unlocked the cosmetics will be compensated with in-game currency. In its update, Behaviour Interactive wrote:

“Members of the community have shared their experiences with people targeting and harassing them while using some of these masks. These reports were disheartening to hear, and we absolutely condemn this behaviour. We are not comfortable having these masks in the game when they are used as...

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Fossil promises Alexa is coming to its smartwatches ‘soon’

Amazon Alexa is “coming soon” to Fossil Gen 6 watches | Photo by Victoria Song/The Verge

Although Fossil launched two new smartwatches at CES today, there’s one big elephant in the room: the upgrade to Wear OS 3 won’t arrive for several months. To take the sting out of the wait, Fossil snuck in another new feature for its Gen 6 smartwatches: Amazon Alexa. As for when Alexa will arrive, you’ll have to settle for “coming soon.” Hopefully before Wear OS 3.

In a statement to 9to5Google, Fossil says the update will come in the first half of 2022. This tracks with what Fossil told The Verge in a CES briefing, in which spokesperson Robyn Sills said Alexa would come to the Gen 6 devices “early this year.” Fossil sent me both the Skagen Falster 6 and the Razer x Fossil Gen 6 smartwatch, and yup, there’s a widget just for Alexa. If...

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This Tablo ATSC 3.0 tuner is a DVR for the 4K over-the-air TV future

This new Tablo box is built to grab TV from the air and record it. | Image: Tablo

The new Tablo ATSC 3.0 Quad HDMI is a DVR meant for the next generation of broadcast TV — which, if all goes according to plan, will involve 4K HDR content being sent out over the airwaves for free. It can record up to four channels at once onto an external hard drive, letting you watch programs back on your schedule, not broadcasters’.

In the age of internet streaming, cable, and satellite, it can be hard to remember that there are still local TV stations broadcasting their programs over the airwaves, which anyone can watch for free if they have an antenna and receiver. But for some enthusiasts, viewing broadcast television is the new cord-cutting — and it’s those signals Tablos are made to record and playback.

ATSC 3.0 supports 4K HDR...

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Drone carrying a defibrillator saves its first heart attack patient in Sweden

Image: Everdrone AB

A man in Sweden is alive today thanks to — in part — a drone. The 71-year-old had a heart attack while shoveling snow in December and was resuscitated by a nearby doctor after a drone flew in a defibrillator, Everdrone reported Tuesday.

Someone having a heart attack needs help within 10 minutes in order to survive. Everdrone’s Emergency Medical Aerial Delivery (EMADE) service is designed to deliver help as quickly as possible — it allows emergency dispatchers to send a drone carrying the device to a caller’s home, kickstarting the lifesaving process before the ambulance arrives at their home. In this particular patient’s case, it took three minutes for the services to deliver the defibrillator to his home. A bystander, who happened to...

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Walmart is expanding its direct-to-your-refrigerator deliveries

Image by Walmart / Wesley Hitt

Walmart plans to expand InHome, its delivery service that brings groceries (and other items) directly to your fridge or countertop, to 30 million US households by the end of this year. As a part of the expansion, the retail giant says it will hire 3,000 delivery drivers and establish an all-electric fleet of delivery vehicles, thousands of which it has just ordered from the General Motors-backed electric vehicle company BrightDrop.

The InHome delivery service requires you to pay a $19.95 / month subscription fee, along with an optional $49.95 fee for a smart lock (if you don’t already have a garage keypad or a smart lock already) that grants bodycam-wearing Walmart associates access to your home — and your fridge. When the service first...

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BMW debuts its new color-changing paint technology at CES: E Ink

If you’ve ever felt indecisive about what color vehicle to buy, BMW may have the car for you. The German automaker showed off its new color-changing paint technology at the 2022 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that shares more in common with a Kindle than you’d think at first glance.

Relying on E Ink, the electronic paper technology used in e-readers, and the old Pebble watch, the color-changing paint technology is making its debut on a concept version of the BMW iX that is being presented at CES.

The surface coating of the BMW iX Flow featuring E Ink contains many millions of microcapsules, with a diameter equivalent to the thickness of a human hair. Each of these microcapsules contains negatively charged white pigments and...

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New Instagram test brings back the chronological feed

Image: Instagram

Instagram head Adam Mosseri says the company has started testing two new feed settings, including the much-requested chronological option.

In a video shared today, Mosseri demonstrated a new menu with three options for how Instagram’s feed will display posts. The “Home” setting is what users are familiar with — a feed Instagram creates based on what it thinks will interest each user, ranked using an algorithm. A new “Favorites” feed will be populated with content from a subset of accounts a user chooses (Mosseri says he uses it for siblings, certain creators, and friends). And finally, a “Following” feed will return what many users have been asking for: a chronological stream of posts from accounts you follow.

Mosseri promised the...

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Volvo confident it can get its ‘unsupervised’ highway driving mode approved in California

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge

Volvo announced a new advanced driver assist system called Ride Pilot system, in which its vehicles drive themselves on certain highways without any human supervision. Ride Pilot will be available as a subscription service to customers in California, the company announced at the 2022 Consumer Electronics Show.

It’s an ambitious plan that carries its own risks and sets Volvo apart from its competitors, many of which are planning to launch self-driving technology as part of a robotaxi service rather than production cars for personal ownership. But Volvo believes that by limiting the operational domain — or conditions under which the car can drive autonomously — to just highways, it is creating vehicle technology that is not only safer but...

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Google will spend 2022 trying to match Apple’s ecosystem integrations

Google is announcing no fewer than 13 different new software features at CES 2022, ranging from AirPods-like fast switching to promised software that will mirror your Android text apps on a Chromebook. It’s part of an initiative that Google calls “Better Together” but that the rest of the industry is more likely to refer to as “catching up to Apple’s ecosystem.”

The biggest updates come to Google’s “Fast Pair” framework, an Android UI designed to make pairing Bluetooth headphones easier. This year, Google will extend it to support auto-switching between devices, faster pairing to Android TV and Google TV, and more. It will also adopt the Fast Pair framework for installing new smart home devices using the upcoming Matter standard, which...

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Android will finally get AirPod-style auto-switching in 2022

Fast Pairing Bluetooth headphones on Google TV | Google

Google plans to spend the next few months beefing up the Bluetooth headphone capabilities on Android phones. It plans to update its Fast Pair technology to include features that iPhone and AirPod users have long enjoyed. With supported headphones (which presumably are forthcoming in 2022 but have not yet been announced), audio sources including Android phones, Chromebooks, Android TV, and select Windows PCs will be auto-switching.

Google will also begin supporting full head tracking for spatial audio on Android, adapting sound based on your head movements. It already supports basic spatial audio for a few music services right now. Unfortunately, that’s all the detail the company is providing on spatial audio right now — which means...

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The Motorola MA1 is a dongle for wireless Android Auto

Image: SGW Global

If you’re a fan of Android Auto but hate having to plug in your phone, the Motorola MA1 could be worth a look — it’s a USB dongle that turns your wired Android Auto-equipped car into one that can connect to your phone wirelessly. The MA1, which is available for $90 starting today, pairs with your phone using Bluetooth and then transmits data over 5Ghz Wi-Fi. Given that only a few cars support wireless Android Auto from the factory (especially compared to the ones that support the wired version), this gadget could make for a relatively easy and inexpensive upgrade.

Of course, wireless Android Auto does have its drawbacks — since it’s not plugged in, your phone won’t be charging as you navigate with maps or listen to music using your car’s...

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Razer’s new app will put Chroma RGB throughout your home

This 2018 image for Philips Hue coming to Razer Synapse is so much better than the assets Razer provided for this story. | Image: Philips

Most of Razer’s products live in the entertainment center, or near the PC, but it wants to expand its reach to every corner of your home — or at least, everywhere you use smart lights. At CES 2022, the company announced that it intends to launch a Razer Smart Home app for mobile, which it says is a “simple, yet powerful tool that puts complete, unified control into the user’s hands.” With it, Razer plans to make it easier to set up, customize, and sync all of your lights, regardless of the manufacturer. It plans to share more details at this link.

Razer has been toying with this idea of tapping into other smart lights before. Currently, gamers who have Razer’s Synapse PC software can sync a Philips Hue Bridge (and the lights connected to...

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Razer’s new Zephyr Pro mask has the voice amp feature we wanted all along

The Zephyr Pro features two speaker grilles near the bottom replaceable filter, along with a voice amp button near one of its intakes. | Razer

In case you were disappointed that Razer axed the voice amp feature from its Zephyr mask that promised to amplify your voice through speakers, don’t worry. Razer plans to upsell you on its Zephyr Pro mask that has been announced at CES 2022. While it looks virtually identical to the Zephyr, it has two speaker grilles that flank its bottom, replaceable filter. Also, one of the Chroma RGB-lined intakes features a new button that can turn voice amplification on or off. Razer says that the feature can pipe out your voice at 60 decibels at a range of one meter.

The Zephyr Pro will cost $149.99 when it releases sometime in 2022, compared to the $99.99 starting price for the standard Zephyr mask. You’ll someday be able to purchase a starter...

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Some Volvos will get a YouTube app and Google Assistant-controlled AC

Not that a vertical screen is the best for YouTube. | Image: Google

Google has announced that cars with its services built-in will be getting the ability to play YouTube videos while parked later this year, starting with Volvo. For those with a V90, XC40 Recharge, or other supported cars, this should make waiting in a parking lot more bearable since you’ll be able to see videos on your car’s built-in screen, which is probably going to be slightly larger and more ergonomic than a phone.

Google also seems to leave the door open for other video apps as well, so it’s possible other developers could let you access their content from your car’s infotainment system.

“Hey Google, warm up my car.”

You’ll also be able to control some Volvo cars using Google Assistant from outside the car — in a video embedded in...

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Razer’s Project Sophia concept turns your desk into a modular computer

Razer is no stranger to wild CES prototypes, and CES 2022 is no exception: the company revealed its new Project Sophia concept, which aims to build an entire modular desktop computer into a desk that looks like a Star Trek LCARS console come to life.

Razer has had modular computer aspirations before. There was 2014’s Project Christine, a precursor to Project Sophia that imagined a desktop tower that was built out of easily swappable Jenga-like bricks. 2020’s Tomahawk took a more practical approach to that concept, based on Intel’s Element NUC designs.

But Project Sophia feels like Razer’s conceptual tendencies turned to 11. The desk is designed to feature 13 different swappable module slots, where users can add in a wide...

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Razer’s Enki Pro HyperSense can jig to the beat of your games

EMB 1/5 1pm et | Razer

Razer’s lineup of gaming chairs is expanding into new territory with the Enki Pro HyperSense, a chair that can vibrate and wobble to the action happening in your games and movies. This model houses a haptic engine near the wheels that should deliver jolts of haptic feedback through the chair. Additionally, the Enki Pro HyperSense should tilt backward or lift you vertically by 1.5 inches with around 1G of force. It’s all done with up to a 5ms response time.

If this sounds familiar, what Razer’s going for is similar to D-Box’s movie theater seats that can rumble and move. In fact, Razer collaborated with D-Box to incorporate the haptics and movements into the Enki Pro HyperSense. Razer’s seems to differ in one key way: it’s on wheels. The...

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