Aqara’s new motion sensor works with Matter and Thread, but that means problems

The Aqara Motion and Light Sensor P2 is the company’s first motion sensor that doesn’t require a Zigbee hub.

Aqara’s Thread-based Motion and Light Sensor P2 ($33.99) has been on my smart home wish list since it was announced way back in 2022 — and now, it’s finally here. My home runs on motion sensors, and I’ve been using Aqara’s Zigbee-based ones for years. They’re among my favorites due to their low price, small size, simplicity, and rock-solid reliability. But they require a hub, which adds complexity and makes them harder to recommend.

What makes the new P2 different is that it uses Matter-over-Thread instead of Zigbee. This means that, in theory, it will connect directly to your smart home platform of choice — Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, etc. — no Aqara Zigbee hub needed. It’s also $10 cheaper than the Eve Motion ($49.95), the...

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Amazon’s Fallout show gets the postapocalyptic vibes exactly right

Image: Prime Video

In making successful video game adaptations, it feels more important to strike the right tone rather than follow the source material to the letter. “Tone” in Falloutis Walton Goggins’ whiskey-soaked cowboy drawl ripped straight from the age of Gary Cooper and John Wayne extolling the virtues of bucolic Vault-Tec living with a sign that says “Test Subjects” just a touch off-screen.

In other words: perfection.

Image: Amazon Studios

Fallout strikes such a pitch-perfect tone and its vibes are so postapocalyptically immaculate, that it doesn’t really matter what story the show is trying to tell. Something about a daughter (Ella Purnell) looking for her kidnapped father (Kyle MacLachlan), a high-value scientist (Michael...

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A Monopoly movie is coming courtesy of Margot Robbie and Lionsgate

Art from the Monopoly mobile game produced by Marmalade Game Studio. | Image: Marmalade Game Studio / Hasbro

Monopoly — a board game about forcing people into bankruptcy by buying up as much real estate as possible — does not seem like something that would make for an entertaining cinematic escape from reality, but Lionsgate plans to test that theory.

Variety reports that a Monopolymovie is in the works at Lionsgate that will be produced by Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap — the same outfit that backed Birds of Prey, Barbie, and Saltburn. In a statement about the new film, Lionsgate film head Adam Fogelson expressed his confidence in LuckyChap’s “clear point of view” on the MonopolyIP and excitement about the possibility of the game becoming another blockbuster for the production outfit.

Hasbro, which also owns the rights to the TransformersIP, has...

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The best trailers from the Triple-i indie game showcase

Cataclismo. | Image: Digital Sun

There’s a new video game showcase on the block. The Triple-i initiative — a play on the term AAA, referring to blockbuster games — is a Nintendo Direct-style event focused entirely on indie releases from studios like Mega Crit, Red Hook Studios, and Evil Empire. _“_We felt a need for a showcase that highlights wildly different indie games but that have one thing in common; they resonate with millions of players around the world,” Evil Empire’s Bérenger Dupré said when the event was announced.

The first showcase took place earlier today, and it was 45 minutes packed with announcements. There were big names like Prince of Persia and Palworld, as well as titles ranging from medieval strategy games (with dinosaurs) to futuristic action games...

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Microsoft is bringing its Xbox dashboard to the web with party chat and more

Illustration: The Verge

Microsoft is previewing a new Xbox Cloud Gaming interface today that includes the social features and UI you’d normally find in the Xbox dashboard. The new interface includes access to a web version of Xbox party chat, so you can use a browser to join a call with friends instead of the dedicated Xbox desktop and mobile apps.

The updated web interface also includes the ability to find and manage Xbox friends, send messages, view user profiles and achievements, and even access notifications. Microsoft is testing this initially with Xbox Insiders before rolling this interface out to all Xbox Cloud Gaming users.

As this new interface is part of Xbox Cloud Gaming, most of it will also be available on smart TVs and Meta’s Quest VR headsets,...

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Amazon will stop paying developers for making Alexa skills

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Amazon will soon stop paying developers to create skills for Alexa. In a notice spotted by Bloomberg, Amazon told developers it’s ending monthly payouts after June 30th, 2024.

Amazon started paying developers of popular Alexa skills in 2017. The company both offered a $100 monthly credit to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and paid developers based on how popular their skills were. While many developers didn’t make any money from their skills, a small number reported making thousands each month — at least at the very start of the program.

However, as reported by Bloomberg, Amazon began paring back the amount of money it paid developers in 2020 since the skills weren’t bringing in a significant amount of money for Amazon.

This shutdown of both...

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The Apple Watch could be the next great Game Boy emulator

Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge

In a cosmic coincidence, just days after I stayed up too late playing Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, a video of that very game being played on an apparent Apple Watch Ultra came across my screen. I’m now fully convinced that emulators on an Apple Watch would be a great way to game.

Sadly, there are no Apple Watch emulators on the App Store that I’m aware of — yet, at least. R3V3RB_7, the Redditor who posted the video, says it actually shows a $35 Apple Watch knock-off running Android, which has long been the de facto home for smartphone (and, now, smartwatch) emulation.

But you may not need a knock-off watch to do this soon since Apple made the surprising decision last week to allow emulators on the App Store worldwide. The app review...

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The House will vote on expanding warrantless wiretapping authority

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The House will soon vote on the reauthorization of a controversial surveillance program ahead of its expiration in ninedays. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is set to expire on April 19th, lets US intelligence agencies spy on foreign communications without a warrant — sometimes ensnaring US citizens as well.

Previous negotiations over the FISA reauthorization grew so heated that in February, House Speaker Mike Johnson withdrew the bill from consideration. At issue were provisions intended to protect Americans’ privacy: one prohibiting data brokers from selling consumer data to law enforcement and another requiring a warrant to search Americans’ data. These amendments are not in the latest version of the...

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The first confirmed Playtron gaming handheld is aimed squarely at crypto bros

An early render of the SuiPlay0X1. | Image: Mysten Labs

Last month, I told you how a new startup is trying to build an Android of PC gaming by picking up where the Steam Deck left off. It’s an intriguing idea from a company with an awful lot to prove.

Today, we’re getting the first announcement of the first Playtron-powered handheld, the SuiPlay0X1... but it’s probably not the proof we need? I laughed when I saw GamingOnLinux’s headline: “The first handheld to use PlaytronOS is some Web3 thing.”

BREAKING: announcement from onstage at #SuiBasecamp: we’re excited to share the first handheld gaming device with native Web3 capabilities – the SuiPlay0X1, powered by @PLAYTR0N! pic.twitter.com/Zubhx6gyXG

— Sui (@SuiNetwork) April 10, 2024

The SuiPlay0X1 comes from Mysten Labs, one of...

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A new bill wants to reveal what’s really inside AI training data

Illustration: Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos: Getty Images

A new bill would compel tech companies to disclose any copyrighted materials that are used to train their AI models.

The Generative AI Copyright Disclosure bill from Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) would require anyone making a training dataset for AI to submit reports on its contents to the Copyrights Register. The reports should include a detailed summary of the copyrighted material in the dataset and the URL for the dataset if it’s publicly available. This requirement will be extended to any changes made to the dataset.

Companies must submit a report “not later than 30 days” before the AI model that used the training dataset is released to the public. The bill will not be retroactive to existing AI platforms unless changes are made to their...

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Logitech’s excellent wired gaming mouse is down to $36 today

The G502 has stellar ergonomics, sensitivity, and customizability for a reasonable price. | Image: Logitech

I’ve tried many gaming mice over the years, but I always seem to come back to Logitech’s G502 Hero. I started with the wired version many moons ago, and it’s just as good as the wireless model if you don’t mind it staying tethered to your PC. It has the advantage of having zero latency (although the wireless model is close) and it’s the more economical choice, too. The wired model is even cheaper than usual over at Amazon right now, where it’sclose to an all-time low at$35.99. That’s about $14 off its usual price of $49.99. Best Buy also has it for a dollar more at $36.99.

The G502 uses a 25,600 DPI Hero sensor, which offers so wide a range of sensitivity tuning that you should have no problems getting your cursor or turning speeds...

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Ford Mustang Mach-E gets more range, faster charging, and quicker acceleration

Image: Ford

Ford unveiled the 2024 Mustang Mach-E, with more range, faster charging, and quicker acceleration than past models.

Ford is the No. 2 seller of EVs in the US but still trails far behind Tesla in terms of total number of sales. The Elon Musk-run company has seen its market share in the US slip quarter over quarter but still commands over 50 percent of the EV market. As such, Ford is tweaking its flagship EV in the hopes of improving its market position.

The 2024 Mach-E will now travel around 10–20 miles farther than previous model years

The 2024 Mach-E will now travel around 10–20 miles farther than previous model years, Ford says. The rear-wheel drive motor configuration with extended battery range now boasts a total EPA-estimated...

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Microsoft Build will detail ‘next generation’ of Windows on Arm and new AI features

Microsoft’s Surface Pro X. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Microsoft’s annual developer conference, Microsoft Build, will focus heavily on Windows on Arm and new Windows AI features this year. The Verge revealed earlier this week that a special Surface and AI event a day before Microsoft Build will include a focus on beating Apple’s M3-powered MacBook Air with new Arm-powered Surface devices and a big new Windows AI feature. Now, Microsoft is all but confirming this.

Microsoft has listed out the developer sessions for Build today, including two that mention “the next generation of Windows on Arm” and “a brand-new Windows AI feature.” The next generation Windows on Arm session will include details on “industry-leading performance” for apps, likely a nod to Microsoft’s ambitions of beating Apple’s...

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Texas is replacing thousands of human exam graders with AI

The TEA expects to save between $15 and $20 million per year by using its new “automated scoring engine.” | Image: The Verge

Students in Texas taking their state-mandated exams this week are being used as guinea pigs for a new artificial intelligence-powered scoring system set to replace a majority of human graders in the region.

The Texas Tribune reports an “automated scoring engine” that utilizes natural language processing — the technology that enables chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT to understand and communicate with users — is being rolled out by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to grade open-ended questions on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) exams. The agency is expecting the system to save $15–20 million per year by reducing the need for temporary human scorers, with plans to hire under 2,000 graders this year compared to the...

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The Internet Archive is now hosting Aruba’s history

A Divi Divi tree, which always points southwest because of the island’s trade winds. | Image: Hans W. Hannau / Carol Burns and Jane Suter Collection

Aruba is backing up its history on the Internet Archive, a first for the digital preservation site. The Archive announced on April 8th that it was opening the portal to Coleccion Aruba, giving worldwide access to more than 100,000 of Aruba’s historical documents. The works include materials that Aruba began collecting under its national library and archives after it became a country under the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1986.

According to the Internet Archive, the Aruba collection “includes about 40,000 documents, 60,000 images, 900 videos, 45 audio files and seven 3D objects for a total of 67 thematic and/or institutional (sub)collections.” Besides adding everything to its own servers, the Archive says it’s also backing everything up...

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Meta’s new AI chips runs faster than before

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Meta promises the next generation of its custom AI chips will be more powerful and able to train its ranking models much faster.

The Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) is designed to work best with Meta’s ranking and recommendation models. The chips can help make training more efficient and inference — aka the actual reasoning task — easier.

The company said in a blog post that MTIA is a big piece of its long-term plan to build infrastructure around how it uses AI in its services. It wants to design its chips to work with its current technology infrastructure and future advancements in GPUs.

“Meeting our ambitions for our custom silicon means investing not only in compute silicon but also in memory bandwidth, networking,...

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The composers of X-Men ‘97 had to evolve the show’s sound to honor its roots

Image: Disney Plus / Marvel

To create the X-Men ‘97 score, Andy Grush and Taylor Stewart had to work through their nostalgia and create new sounds from the future.

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This luxury watch is about as thin as a strand of spaghetti

Image: Bulgari

The Italian luxury brand Bulgari has broken the record for the world’s thinnest mechanical watch yet again. Its new Bulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC watch measures just 1.7mm thick — about the same thickness as your typical strand of spaghetti, as reported earlier by Dezeen.

Bulgari has long held the record for the world’s thinnest watch, but it had to go even thinner following the 2022 release of Richard Mille’s 1.75mm RM UP-01 Ferrari watch. The result is the Bulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC, which comes with an “optimized” 40mm case that’s “even thinner than a coin.” Bulgari somehow managed to fit all 170 components that power the wearable within its case, some of which you can see at work with the openwork dial.

Bulgari uses...

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This is the new Sonos app, coming May 7th

Illustration: The Verge

Sonos will release a substantial update to its mobile app for both Android and iOS on May 7th, The Verge has learned. Based on screenshots provided by people familiar with the company’s plans, the app is receiving a fresh coat of paint. Sonos is also working to make product setup easier and strengthen connectivity between its many speakers. As always, the specific release date is subject to change if the company encounters any last-minute issues.

The revamped app will roll out as an update to the Sonos S2 app that the company released in 2020 when it forked off some of its oldest products and left them on the legacy S1 platform.

It changes up the current S2 app design by ditching the bottom navigation tabs and putting everything onto...

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How to find any file on macOS

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

Finding files on your Mac drive can get tricky — especially when you’re not sure exactly what it is you’re looking for. Apple being Apple, file management “just works” most of the time, but that’s not always the case if you need to hunt down something that’s buried deep.

There are a couple of ways to look for files on macOS: a quick and simple way and a more comprehensive and advanced way. If neither of those work, you’ve got third-party tools you can turn to as well. (If you can’t find what you’re looking for after you’ve exhausted all of those options, it might be time to admit that the file isn’t actually there.)

The quick and easy method: Spotlight

Spotlight is the quickest route to finding a file.

You can use...

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Roku’s Pro Series TVs have low prices, 120Hz screens, and clever ideas

Image: Roku

Roku “announced” its Pro-tier series of TVs back at CES but provided little in the way of details at the time. But now, we’ve firmly entered the season when 2024 TVs begin actually shipping, so today, the company is sharing more on what sets these models apart from its self-branded budget TVs released last year — and the many Roku TVs available from other manufacturers.

Like Roku’s other products, the appeal all boils down to simplicity and ease of use. These TVs will automatically adjust and optimize their picture (and brightness) from scene to scene based on what content is being displayed. Roku calls its version “Smart Picture Max” and says its picture quality engineers have obsessed over performance. A less advanced version, Roku...

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I’m still trying to generate an AI Asian man and white woman

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

I inadvertently found myself on the AI-generated Asian people beat this past week. Last Wednesday, I found that Meta’s AI image generator built into Instagram messaging completely failed at creating an image of an Asian man and white woman using general prompts. Instead, it changed the woman’s race to Asian every time.

The next day, I tried the same prompts again and found that Meta appeared to have blocked prompts with keywords like “Asian man” or “African American man.” Shortly after I asked Meta about it, images were available again — but still with the race-swapping problem from the day before.

I understand if you’re a little sick of reading my articles about this phenomenon. Writing three stories about this might be a little...

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I regret buying the viral TikTok skincare wand

The ad campaigns for the Medicube Age-R Booster-H eventually wore me down. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge

It’s got nothing to do with whether it works. It’s how I’m trapped in TikTok’s neverending product-recommending algorithm.

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Microsoft left internal passwords exposed in latest security blunder

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images

Microsoft reportedly locked down a server last month that exposed passwords, keys, and credentials of Microsoft employees to the open internet, as the company faces mounting pressure to bolster its software security.

According to Techcrunch, three security researchers at SOCRadar — a company specializing in detecting corporate cybersecurity weaknesses — discovered that an Azure-hosted server storing sensitive data linked to Microsoft’s Bing search engine was left open with no password protection, meaning it could be accessed by anyone online. The server contained a variety of security credentials used by Microsoft employees to access internal systems, housed within various scripts, code, and configuration files.

The exposed credentials...

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Consumers will finally see FCC-mandated ‘nutrition labels’ for most broadband plans

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

It appears that a nearly eight-year-long battle by the FCC to require internet companies to display information on the costs, fees, and speeds of their broadband services is finally over. Starting on Wednesday, all but the smallest ISPs will be required to publish broadband “nutrition labels” on all of their plans, the regulator announced. The FCC’s intention behind the labels is that they’ll allow consumers to more easily comparison shop between plans and avoid any hidden fees.

Below is an example of what the FCC-mandated broadband nutritional label will look like:

Image: FCC

The next time you shop for either a standalone home or fixed internet plan, or a new mobile broadband plan, you should notice such a label....

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The US finalizes rules for ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water

Part of a filtration system designed to filter out PFAS forever chemicals from the drinking water supply at Well #2 of the Horsham Water and Sewer Authority facility in Horsham, Pennsylvania, on August 22nd, 2019. | Photo by Bastiaan Slabbers / NurPhoto via Getty Images

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized rules for the amount of certain “forever chemicals” allowed in drinking water. This is the first time the US has placed legally enforceable federal limits on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), chemicals so ubiquitous that they’ve likely already made their way into most Americans’ bloodstreams.

There are thousands of different kinds of PFAS used to make products resistant to water, stains, and heat. Before potential health risks came to light, these chemicals became staple ingredients in everything from nonstick pans, food packaging, fire-fighting foams, and fabric protector to dental floss and menstrual products. The chemicals’ hallmark hardiness also means that they...

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Kobo announces its first color e-readers

Image: Rakuten Kobo

Rakuten Kobo is launching its first color e-readers, the Kobo Libra Colour and the Kobo Clara Colour. Both use E Ink’s latest Kaleido color screen technology, which has subtle, pastel-like hues and drops from a 300ppi grayscale resolution to 150ppi when you view content in color.

I’ll be testing both e-readers soon, but so far, they look like small upgrades to Kobo’s existing e-readers. That’s not a bad thing, though! The seven-inch Kobo Libra 2 is my favorite e-reader outside of Amazon’s ecosystem, offering the Kindle Paperwhite’s IPX8 waterproof design but with extras like physical page-turning buttons, no lockscreen ads, and more storage.

Image: Rakuten Kobo

The Kobo Libra Colour comes with physical...

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In the first Joker: Folie à Deux trailer, twisted love wins

You might know the broad strokes of the Joker and Harley Quinn’s twisted romance from Batman: The Animated Series and other DC projects. But the first trailer for Joker: Folie à Deuxmakes it seem like director Todd Phillips is doing something very different with his musical take on the characters.

Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is still locked up in Arkham in Folie à Deux’s new trailer, and it seems as if the events from the previous film have led to his being put under an increased amount of supervision. The Asylum looks like a lonely, bleak place as Arthur’s marched around by armed guards. But there’s hope in Arthur’s eyes when crosses paths with fellow inmate Harleen Quinzel (Lady Gaga).

Though the trailer features a handful of shots...

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Cruise will resume robotaxi tests after one of its cars ran someone over

Cruise will look to get its driverless cars under control before it takes on new passengers. | Getty

Cruise has announced that it’s resuming tests for its fleet of self-driving taxis in Phoenix, Arizona , though not with passengers just yet. The autonomous vehicle maker says it will start with humans behind the wheel, with no passengers and no autonomous driving mechanisms engaged.

In California, lawmakers banned the GM subsidiary from operating its vehicles in the state after one of them ran over a San Francisco pedestrian and dragged them over 20 feet in October, after another vehicle threw the victim into the robotaxi’s path. That was just weeks after another incident where one of Cruise’s vehicles collided with a fire truck after failing to properly yield to the truck’s emergency signals.

The company’s been dealing with the fallout...

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Apple’s latest entry-level iPad has returned to its best price to date

We wouldn’t recommend the 10th-gen iPad for most people at full price, but it’s certainly a better value at $349. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

With each passing day, it seems increasingly unlikely that Apple will introduce a new slate of iPads before the end of April — which isn’t surprising when you consider the latest reports now indicate Apple’s forthcoming tablets won’t arrive until early May. The iPad Pro, iPad Air, and iPad Mini are all rumored to receive a refresh, though, the same isn’t true of Apple’s entry-level model, which is currently matching its all-time low of $349 ($100) in its base configuration at Amazon and Best Buy. You can also pick it up at Target for the same price if you’re a member of Target Circle, the retailer’s free rewards program.

As for where it sits in Apple’s current tablet lineup, the 10th-gen iPad resides somewhere between the ninth-gen...

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