iRobot’s Roomba j7 Plus, our favorite robot vacuum, has hit an all-time low
The Roomba j7 Plus offers everything you could want in a robovac, including an auto-empty dock. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
There’s a reason people still often refer to robot vacuums as “Roombas.” The company behind the well-known robovac series, iRobot, has spent decades iterating in the space, resulting in some of the best robot vacuums you can buy. The Roomba j7 Plus is a great example, one that’s on sale at Wellbots for Verge readers for $549 ($250 off) — its lowest price to date — with coupon code VERGE200.
While still pricey, the j7 Plus brings together a host of terrific features for under $550. Its dual rubber roller brush system is great at picking up dirt off your floor, while its intuitive AI obstacle avoidance ensures it will steer clear of cables, stray pairs of shoes, and even pet waste. It’s also known to receive new features — a recent update added Siri support, for instance, while another added the ability to use it as a security camera — which has only made it a better robovac since we first tested it last year.
Unlike the standard j7, the discounted “Plus” model on offer here comes with a slick auto-empty dock, which typically retailers for about $250 on its own and cuts down on unwanted maintenance. Wellbots is also heavily discounting the Roomba Combo j7 Plus using the same promo code, which drops the mop-equipped model down to $799 ($250 off).
While nothing has been confirmed (yet), Apple is widely expected to unveil its next set of smartwatches alongside the iPhone 15 next month — which is perhaps why we’re currently seeing some steep discounts on some last-gen models. Right now, for instance, you can pick up a 41mm Apple Watch Series 7 with LTEat Walmart for $299 ($100 off), one the best prices to date on the 41mm model with cellular connectivity.
As my colleague Victoria Song noted in her review of the Apple Watch Series 8, the latest model isn’t all that different from the last-gen Series 7. It touts Apple’s newer Crash Detection feature and temperature sensors for menstrual tracking, but, otherwise, the two are nearly identical. The Series 7 features roughly the same processing power, the same always-on display, and all of the same health-tracking features — not to mention forward compatibility with watchOS 10 when it launches in the fall.
In the end, you’re saving $130 by opting for the last-gen smartwatch over its newer counterpart, even with all the discounts the Series 8 is currently receiving at Amazon, Walmart, and other retailers.
Razer’s Stream Controller X, a customizable controller with 15 LCD buttons, is matching its all-time low of $125.90 (about $24 off) at Amazon. There’s no denying that it looks and functions a lot like Elgato’s Stream Deck MK.2 — a favorite amongst Verge staffers — but it runs on Loupedeck’s software as opposed to Elgato’s. Still, if you’re someone who wants an easy way to program various macros for controlling your smart lighting, operating your Twitch stream, or performing other tasks, it poses a nice alternative.
Let’s face it, the time for scoffing at entry-level wireless earbuds has long since passed. There are now plenty of budget-friendly options to choose from — including Sony’s WF-C700N, which are on sale at Best Buy right now for $89.99 ($30 off). The comfortable earbuds make for a solid value, with reliable performance, terrific software features, and decent sound for the price. Best of all, they now offer multipoint support thanks to a recent firmware update, so you can connect them to two devices at once. Read our review.
The original Theragun Mini, a portable massage gun we often spotlight in our gift guides, is down to $139.99 ($60 off) at Best Buy. The last-gen model is not quite as light or as quiet as the second-gen version, but it’s still a surprisingly powerful tool with three speeds for addressing knots and muscle aches on the go.
Admittedly, I’ve always been an advocate of using less technology outdoors, not more. That said, I can’t help but recommend Anker’s Powerhouse 521, which is matching its all-time low of $186.99 ($33 off) at Amazon right now. The portable, 200W power station is great for charging your gadgets when you’re away from a power source, with a built-in floodlight, an LED readout, and plenty of ports (including two AC outlets and a lone USB-C port). Hell, it can even power small appliances in a pinch, should you need it.
The launch lineup for the PSVR 2 was, to put it mildly, meh. That said, Horizon Call of the Mountain remains a fantastic glimpse into what Sony’s PC-grade virtual reality headset is capable of. And right now, Monoprice is selling the PSVR 2 withCall of the Mountain for $549.99 ($50 off), which is one of the first discounts we’ve seen on Sony’s new VR headset for the PS5. Read our review.
How to set up parental controls on your PS5
Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge
Today’s kids are tech-savvy at a very young age, but you might not want your children sitting down in front of a PS5 without some guardrails in place. Sony has built parental controls right into the software for its console, and they can be used in combination with the user profiles feature to put limits on what your kids are able to do.
These limits cover everything from the number of hours your kid can spend gaming to how much they can spend on in-game purchases, and it all ties into the accounts you’ve got configured on your console. The bulk of these parental controls can be managed on the web as well as on the PS5, though new child accounts must be created on the web.
Family management on the web
First of all, you need to tell Sony who’s in your family before you can start restricting what they’re able to do on the household PS5. Assuming you already have a PlayStation Network (PSN) account:
Click Family Management > Set Up Now > Add a Child.
You’ll need to provide a date of birth for the child, an email address, and a password so they can sign into the PS5.
You’ll then be shown a series of parental control settings that will be applied to the account, covering which games, VR features, and websites can be accessed on the PS5.
You’ve got a choice of parental controls for child accounts.
Click Age Level for PS5 games to set a new age level — by default, this will be calculated based on the date of birth you provided.
Click Use of PS VR2 and PS VR if you have a virtual reality headset. Choose Restrict, and your child won’t be able to use these devices without your permission.
Click Web Browsing and then Restrict to stop games and chats from opening web links without your permission while your child is signed into the PS5.
Select Confirm.
Now, you get another group of settings to work through.
Choose Communication and User-Generated Content and Restrict to block features such as voice chat, the sending and receiving of messages, and the sharing of screenshots.
Choose Monthly Spending Limit to put restrictions on how much your child can spend through the PS5 — amounts range from zero to unlimited, with several amounts in between.
You can set how much playtime there should be, when it can begin, and when it should end.
Click Confirm, then set your time zone. After this, you’ll immediately be asked to configure screen time restrictions based on how long your kid can be on the console per day and between what times. Select Confirm again and Agree and Add to Family, and you’re done.
For any setting where you’ve chosen Restrict rather than Don’t Restrict, if your child tries to use the feature in question, you’ll be sent a permission request via email or to the PlayStation mobile app if you’ve got it installed. You can then make a one-time exception if you want to.
You can return to the Account Management page on the web at any time to change these settings or to see your child’s activity on the PS5 (how many hours per day they’ve been gaming, for example). You can also access the same parental controls on the console.
Add child accounts on the PS5
Now that Sony knows who’s in your family, you can add them to the user accounts on your PS5. Your kid will be able to sign in to their own account, with their own games, high scores, and preferences, and with your parental control settings applied.
Log out of your account by selecting your avatar (top right on the homescreen) and then choosing Log Out. Then, pick Add User to let your youngster sign in — they’ll be able to set their own username and profile picture along the way.
How the child account works
A child account doesn’t have the same privileges as an adult account. If your kid opens Settings (via the cog icon, top right), then Family and Parental Controls, they won’t be able to edit those controls — but they will be able to see how much playtime they’ve got left for today.
If you want to make changes or tweak the controls, you just have to head back to your own account on the PS5 and open up the console settings via the cog icon in the top right corner of the homescreen. From there, you can access all of the parental controls that we’ve previously covered on the web interface.
Pick Family and Parental Controls > Family Management and then choose the child account to make changes.
Your PS5 will tell you how long your kid has been gaming today.
Select Change Playtime for Today to give your kid more time on the PS5 or to see how much time they’ve already spent gaming.
Select Allowed Games to see pending requests from your child for games that have been blocked or communication options (like voice chat) that aren’t allowed.
Select Parental Controls to tweak all of the settings you already configured on the web, from the monthly spending limit to age range restrictions on games.
You can edit all the parental controls on the PS5, including which games are allowed.
It’s a good idea to protect your PSN account on the PS5 with a PIN code — otherwise, your child could simply log in as you on the console and turn off parental controls. To do this from the PS5 Settings screen, pick Users and Accounts > Login Settings > Require a PS5 Login Passcode.
It doesn’t really make a difference whether you manage parental controls on the web or on the PS5. It’s exactly the same selection of options, so use whichever you find the most convenient — though you do get more information on your kid’s activity if you log in on the web. For example, if your child is allowed to tweak the privacy settings, you can see what the settings are and when they’ve changed.
The video call revolution is dead
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Three years ago, video chat appeared set to revolutionize the way we work. All we actually got was slightly better video chat.
Video-first communication obviously became much more important to many with the covid pandemic. With people suddenly forced to use video chat for work, school, and even to visit with their families, there was a rush of interest in apps and platforms that promised to make the concept of sitting in front of a webcam a bit more exciting.
Zoom, meanwhile, became a verb and a household name practically overnight. It launched an app store, an events platform for everything from yoga classes to doctor visits to worldwide conferences, and a whole suite of other productivitytools with video chat at the center. The company suddenly looked like the future of life, business, school, and everything. It even partnered with Meta to bring Zoom to Meta’s Horizon Workrooms VR productivity space.
Even after all that, the actual experience of video chat is maybe in its most boring state ever. Now that many people are gathering as they did before the pandemic started (even Zoom is demanding that some employees come back to the office), the market is largely run by tech giants and the pace of new and interesting features has slowed to practically nothing. This is the case with many tech changes brought on by the pandemic, but video was supposed to be the one that stuck around.
Zoom is still a force. I attend briefings and meetings using the platform all the time, even though Vox Media itself is a Google Meet house. But Zoom calls themselves still feel remarkably similar to how they did early on in the pandemic, even with added features like facial effects, avatars, and AI summaries. Zoom is increasingly trying to find a business beyond video chat, though I don’t know anyone who uses its Slack-like Team Chat or its email and calendar services, and I think I’ve attended one event on Zoom’s virtual events platform.
Google Meet has come the farthest. Google wisely rebranded the app from “Hangouts Meet” to “Google Meet” in April 2020, which separated it from the confusing and now-dead Hangouts brand. Over time, Google addressed some obviousmissingfeatures and improved the app’s overall stability. I generally don’t think about how to use it when I’m actually using it, which Google should count as a win, but I still wouldn’t say using Google Meet is a joy.
Microsoft continues to invest in video conferencing features for its Teams collaboration app, and I’ll give the company some credit for integrating Snapchat’s Lenses to add some fun to video calls. But there’s something ironic about Microsoft investing so much in another straightforward way to video chat when it already has Skype.
The future of video chat apps isn’t all bleak. Apple has a few interesting ideas that are coming with macOS Sonoma, some of which are borrowed from others: You’ll be able to make your face appear in a little movable bubble, make yourself much larger so that the focus is more on you, and make gestures to set off animated reactions. It’s great that these will probably be everywhere once Sonoma rolls out — especially since they’re all supposed to work with apps like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Cisco’s Webex — but are animated fireworks really the best thing we can add to video chat?
For hanging out on video calls with your friends, Discord’s Activities let you do things like play games with your pals or watch YouTube videos together. If your workplace uses Slack, I actually recommend its video huddles for short, impromptu conversations that feel like the deskside conversations I used to have when I worked in an office.
But it really does feel like the time to get hyped about video chat apps is over. Sure, Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams are all very good at what they do. It’s great that things like custom backgrounds and emoji reactions are commonplace no matter which app you use. But when I hop on a video call, I’m still largely just staring at boxes of people, and the apps have mostly become utilities that I’m just not that excited to use.
Video was supposed to be the future. Instead, it’s just another way to pick up the phone.
Mill’s ambitious smart trash can isn’t going to solve the food waste problem
This $400 kitchen bin eats your leftovers and promises to turn them into chicken food rather than landfill. A nicer-smelling kitchen and less waste are great, but not at this price.
At around 1AM on Sunday morning, my partner sat bolt upright in bed and whispered urgently, “There’s someone in the kitchen!” After listening sleepily for a few seconds to the muffled clunking noise, I replied, “No, there’s not; that’s just the smart bin eating an avocado pit.”
For most couples, this would have necessitated a further middle-of-the-night conversation, but for my long-suffering spouse, the word “smart” was all he needed to hear to roll his eyes and huffily go back to sleep.
The noise-making contraption was the Mill Kitchen Bin — a full-sized, sleek-looking Wi-Fi-connected trash can packed with sensors and an industrial-grade food grinder. It had hit a snag (a large pit) during its otherwise quiet nightly business of munching through its load of melon rinds, egg shells, coffee grinds, half-eaten peanut butter sandwiches, and chicken bones. Over nine hours or so, it worked on shredding, shrinking, drying, and dehydrating the food remnants we’d thrown in the 27-inch-tall, 16-inch-wide bin during the day, turning them into “food grounds” by morning.
The concept here is similar to the electric countertop “composters” you may have heard of — electronic gadgets that grind, dry, and dehydrate uneaten food. But instead of attempting to turn it into compost intended for your garden or houseplants, as those composters do, Mill wants you to ship the food grounds it regurgitates back to the company every month or so, where it turns it into food for chickens.
At least, that’s the plan. Mill CEO and co-founder Matt Rogers tells me they’re still working through some “R&D and regulatory processes” for the feed part. But the idea is that “Food is much more valuable than compost,” he says. “We should keep food as food.”
He’s not wrong. As with Roger’s prior efforts (which include the category-defining Nest Learning Thermostat), the Mill is designed to tackle a huge climate issue. This time, it’s household food waste instead of household energy use. “It’s a massive problem. We throw away about 40 percent of the food we grow, half of which comes from us at home,” he says.
Consequently, food is the most common item in landfills, where it gives off the greenhouse gas methane as it decomposes. It’s a big, little-discussed, global problem, which is a wildly massive issue to tackle with a pricey smart kitchen bin. “It’s this perfect blend of technology meets design meets climate,” says Rogers of the new invention. Mill provides an alternative if you don’t have the time, space, or expertise to manage a compost bin, or if you have all of the above but have nowhere useful to use the compost.
A food mill
I’ve spent a few months with the Mill in my kitchen, and while there is good tech and design here, the bin in its current form is not the solution to food waste. What it is is a very expensive smart rubbish bin that will make you feel better if you can’t / won’t compost or are unable to make any other effort to reduce what you throw out.
You can’t buy the bin outright. Instead, it’s a subscription model, so you’re basically renting it. You either pay $396 a year ($33 a month) or $45 monthly plus a $75 bin delivery (for a total of $615 for the first year). If you reserve a Mill bin today, Mill tells me it should be shipped to you in about two months. There’s no minimum time commitment, and the monthly fee covers all parts, repairs, replacements, and costs / materials for shipping the grounds back. You don’t have to ship the grinds back, but you still pay monthly either way.
While the bin will reduce the amount of trash that leaves your house, there are cheaper solutions for managing your food waste responsibly, including proper meal planning, non-electric countertop compost bins (if you’ve nowhere to put your scraps, there are organizations that can use them), and municipal and private composting programs. But Mill’s selling point is ease of use, and it’s a lot easier and less smelly than any of the above.
The Mill bin is as easy to use as a regular kitchen bin.
Dropping food scraps into the pedal-operated Mill is as easy as throwing them in the trash, but unlike a regular trash can or countertop composting, the Mill isn’t messy, doesn’t smell bad (even with shrimp shells in there for three days), and never attracts flies.
For me, the main benefit was that I only had to empty it about once a month (an easy process), and because I was inputting less in my regular trash bin, that went out less often, too. Mill reports one customer who shipped a 25-pound box of food grounds back to them kept “8.5 standard trash bags out of the landfill.”
But, unless you can offset its cost by paying for a smaller garbage can from your municipality, Mill is a solution for rich people who care about the planet. Those of us who care about the planet but aren’t able to spend $33 a month for a more convenient way to do good and can’t recoup any costs from downsizing our garbage can are just going to have to keep sticking our food scraps in the freezer and lobbying the local council for better community composting.
Henrie was not entirely sure what to make of the Mill.
A solution for a problem we shouldn’t have
We shouldn’t waste food, yet we do. My family of four wastes an unconscionable amount due to busy schedules, picky eaters, and a too-big refrigerator that hides leftovers until they walk out on their own.
We have chickens and a bunny rabbit, so fresh scraps from chopping veggies and fruits mostly find a happy home. But there is a very long list of things chickens can’t eat, including avocados, potatoes, onions, coffee grinds, and anything in butter, oil, or salt (so, most of what I cook).
However, the Mill can eat all these things, which made me skeptical about how Mill Industries will turn these food grounds into healthy chicken food for local farms. According to Mill, the grounds go through several processing steps to make them safe for chickens. “We’re able to test it and blend it to get the right nutritious ingredients,” says Rogers.
But it turns out this is a thing they haven’t actually done yet, at least outside of the research stages. I wanted to try out their chicken food on my chickens, and while Rogers told me I could feed them the grounds directly, the company is still “working to make them into a safe chicken feed ingredient.”
To create food for any creature, you need approval from the Food and Drug Administration and the version for animals, the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO). As no one has ever made commercial chicken food from household leftovers before (it has been done with restaurant and grocery store scraps), Mill needs approval for its process.
While it’s not there yet, the company is getting close. This week, AAFCO approved a new definition for animal feed ingredients made from Dried, Recovered Household Food. There are still more regulatory hoops to jump through, but Mill spokesperson Molly Spaeth tells me, “We expect the two additional procedural votes to be completed by January 2024 at the latest. We have started [chicken feed] production now and are distributing in an R&D capacity until we have that full clearance in January.”
I’m not intimately familiar with regulatory processes for animal food, but right now, Mill’s product doesn’t deliver on its core promise of turning your food waste into commercial chicken food. Until that’s a proven solution — i.e., the hens are happy — it’s basically a glorified trash compactor that you pay monthly for the privilege of using.
The industrial-grade grinding bucket is the guts of the Mill. It fits in the top of the bin.
A smarter kitchen bin
Hungry chickens aside, as a smart trash can, the Mill works well. It made disposing of my food waste easier than my nascent attempts at composting (which is not as simple as it sounds), and I felt less guilt dumping leftovers from my plate or chopping board in there than throwing them in the bin destined for the landfill.
The list of foods the bin can’t take is significantly smaller than things my chickens can’t eat — you shouldn’t put in large bones, hard shells, corn husks, rotten food, or copious amounts of sugar like a whole cake (who throws away a whole cake?!). There’s a handy list of dos and don’ts that attaches magnetically to the bin.
Unlike most of the tech in my smart home, the Mill required minimal attention. Open it with the foot pedal, discarded food goes in, the lid locks at 10PM each night, and the lengthy grinding begins (you can adjust the start time in the accompanying app). Setup was as easy as unboxing, popping in the bucket and large charcoal filter, and plugging it in — although I needed help as the whole contraption weighs a whopping 50 pounds.
Using the bin with its companion smartphone app required setting up an account with my email address. I then paired it via Bluetooth and connected it to my Wi-Fi. The app can send push notifications when the bin is full and if there are problems, and it is also where I could set what time the grinding would begin. It recommends 10PM, and I got a fright when I watched TV in the living room one night, and the bin made a very loud clunking sound as it locked the lid. The grinding process itself, however, is surprisingly quiet (avocado pits notwithstanding).
The bin doesn’t have to be online all the time, and connectivity isn’t required to use it. Its onboard sensors that detect weight, humidity, and moisture run using on-device algorithms to determine how long to grind and dry the food scraps and don’t rely on a cloud connection. However, connectivity helps keep track of the time it needs to automate the dehydration cycles and allows for firmware updates and tweaks to the algorithms.
While I was testing the bin, it received an update that shortened the drying time by an hour or so, ending around 6AM instead of 7AM. Mill also monitors things like the status of the charcoal filter to send a new one automatically and offers up troubleshooting tips in the app if a jam happens.
Subtle LED lights on the bin’s faux-wood lid tell you what it’s doing — grinding, mixing, locked and hot, or ready to be emptied. You can press and hold its single physical button to unlock it while it’s working to add extra scraps, although this process took a beat longer than was useful when you’re in the middle of making breakfast.
The food grounds generally resemble dirt, but when the bin got jammed, Mill told me to soak them to try and clear it out. The resulting sludge was so immovable I had to send the bucket back to Mill to deal with.
When the Mill got jammed, I learned about the other LED icon — two flashing red dots. This was my worst experience with the bin, and the troubleshooting steps the app took me through to try and clear it were sticky, gross, and unsuccessful. In the end, Mill overnighted a new bucket (the removable part, not the whole bin) and had me send my one back for “an examination,” a process included in the product’s warranty.
According to Spaeth, Mill determined the jam was likely caused by adding a bunch of old chard on top of an almost full bucket of overly dehydrated scraps, causing the grounds at the bottom to turn into cement. That firmware update that came a few weeks later and adjusted the drying time was designed to correct this problem so as not to turn the food scraps into powder. But the jam experience was so icky that had I been paying for the service, I would have canceled it on the spot.
Thankfully, once the dark jam days were over, emptying the bin and sending the grounds off to Mill was simple. Everything you need for this is included in the monthly subscription price. I just scheduled my mail delivery person to collect the prelabeled box on his next visit using Mill’s app. This means no extra truck rolling to collect my box and my two months’ worth of food waste — which, based on how many fewer trips to the garbage cart I took, would’ve taken up around four trash bags of space on a diesel garbage truck — fit into a box smaller than my last Amazon delivery package and weighed just over 8lbs.
Emptying the Mill bin when it wasn’t jammed was really simple and definitely less stinky than taking out the regular trash.
According to the report Mill sent me after processing my waste (not a sentence a tech reviewer ever expects to write), I potentially saved -27kgs on CO2 equivalent emissions by using the bin. This included offsetting the energy use of the bin and the shipping footprint. This impact report is similar to the home report a Nest thermostat sends estimating energy saved. This type of positive reinforcement has been shown to help people change their habits. For Rogers, that’s where he sees Mill’s potential success, fundamentally altering people’s daily behaviors.
The Mill impact report said my 8.2 lbs of food waste had saved the equivalent of not burning 31 lbs of coal. The company uses aLifecycle Assessmentto calculate the overall impact of each part of its process.
As it stands, though, this product feels more like a proof of concept. Ultimately, food waste is a problem too big for a Silicon Valley startup to solve singlehandedly. Solutions need to come from municipalities. Approximately 5 percent of US cities currently have a green bin program for food — something that is more common but still not prevalent in Europe. Even when Mill’s $400-a-year bins do effectively close the nutrient food cycle by producing commercial chicken food, we need better local solutions. If Mill is still shipping garbage across the country, then greenwashing accusations start to hold water.
Rogers recognizes this and makes it clear that how Mill is starting is not how it plans to scale. Mill has already partnered with several cities and has plans for more. Mill’s current solution is imperfect, but it does offer a potential alternative to existing systems that do too little. If Mill can scale to provide a viable infrastructure locally — where my food grounds are delivered to a local processing center, and the resulting chicken food goes to nearby farms, that seems like a win-win.
But that is a very big If. As it stands, my kitchen scraps are flying 3,000 miles or so from South Carolina to Mill’s only feed facility in Mukilteo, Washington, and so far, no local chickens have consumed a grain.
The Mill (which should only be used indoors) is a well-designed piece of tech that significantly reduced the volume of trash leaving my house. But it’s not going to singlehandedly solve the food waste problem.
The “Mill”ion-dollar question
I enjoyed using the Mill — I like how it looks, and the convenience promise paid off — but I won’t pay $33 a month for it, and I doubt there are many people who will. Is it better than throwing your discarded food into the regular bin or down the garbage disposal? Yes. At a minimum, and chicken feed aside, the Mill bin dramatically reduced the volume of waste leaving my house, resulting in less space taken up in the landfill and that big diesel garbage truck.
But that just isn’t a compelling enough payoff for most people to invest monthly in a smart kitchen bin. It’s no 15 percent off your energy bill, as the Nest promises, which is a hard enough sell for a device that costs half the amount this bin does.
The experience did make me more aware of how much food we waste. But rather than pay for a fancy device to fix that problem, I’m determined to do a better job of meal planning and eating my leftovers in a timely fashion.
If the promise of the food grounds becoming chicken food pans out and if Mill can scale to a point where municipalities offer these bins to their taxpayers for free or reduced costs, similar to how energy companies give rebates on smart thermostats, I can see more value. If they also eliminate the cross-country shipping issue, that would be even better. But today, it feels like an over-engineered solution to an enormous problem that a few thousand people who can pay for the privilege of feeling better about their waste management just isn’t going to impact.
Photos and video by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
As Hollywood Strikes Roll On, Viewers Catch Up With a TV Glut After years of being inundated with new shows, some are using a pause in production to finally watch all the stuff they missed when it came out.
Google Slides is getting native support for annotations
Circling! Underlining! And more! | Image: Google
Google is adding a new annotation feature to its Slides presentation software that’ll let users doodle on their work while presenting it. The search giant hopes that having the ability to “circle, underline, draw connections or make quick notes” will make for presentations that are “more engaging, interactive and impactful.”
While Microsoft PowerPoint users have long had the ability to doodle on their decks, Google Slides users haven’t been so lucky. In response people have developed workarounds like using Chrome extensions like Annotate and Web Paint to draw over their browser while presenting. Needless to say, having the feature natively built into Slides should be much simpler.
According to Google’s blog post, the annotation feature is accessible via the three dot menu that’s available on the bottom left of the screen while presenting. There’s a pen tool with a few different color options, as well as an eraser.
The feature will be rolling out to most Google Slides users in the two weeks following August 23rd, but anyone on a rapid release domain will get it in the next couple of weeks. Annotations will be available to all Google Slides users, regardless of whether they have a paid Google Workspace account, or a free Google account.
Olivia Rodrigo just released a new song — and a new Instagram feature
Image: Instagram
A new Instagram feature allows users to add music to their grid posts — and Olivia Rodrigo is the first person to do it.
The feature was introduced today by Rodrigo, who used it to unveil her new song, “bad idea right?” Instagram users can attach a song of their choice to soundtrack a carousel post with multiple photos or videos, similar to how tracks can be added to Stories or Reels. The feature appears to be in the process of rolling out to users.
Sadly, The Verge did not get a preview of the song and post under embargo, so I can’t really tell you much about it. But if it’s anything like “good 4 u” off of her last album, I already like it.
Instagram is also releasing a handful of new features besides this one. First, followers will have a new incentive to make Reels: when a fan uses the “add yours” sticker to make a video based on a prompt, they’ll have a chance to be highlighted by the original creator or artist. When a creator selects a submission to be highlighted, the video appears at the top of a landing page, showing other Reels stemming from the sticker prompt. Creators will be able to pin up to 10 Reels to highlight, and fans will get a notification if their video is selected by the creator.
Instagram is also expanding its collaborative publishing feature to include up to three other accounts as co-authors of posts. The Collabs feature allows both public and private accounts to jointly share content and have it appear on each account’s feed.
Regulators Agree to Expansion of Driverless Car Services in San Francisco Autonomous Cruise and Waymo taxis have been buzzing around the city for some time, and now they can offer round-the-clock rides for pay.
Robotaxis get the green light to expand to 24/7 service in San Francisco
Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Waymo and Cruise were approved to operate their robotaxi services 24/7 in San Francisco, after a contentious public hearing in which residents voiced their support and opposition to the vehicles.
Currently, the companies only offer limited service. The vote in favor of the companies essentially gives robotaxis full access to the peninsula and its residents. They are now able to operate similarly to Uber or Lyft — travel anywhere in the city, at any time of day, and charge money for the rides.
The six-and-a-half hour hearing featured a variety of voices, many of them from the disabled community, speaking to the pros and cons of autonomous ride-hailing services. Residents opposed to the companies spoke of blocked traffic and robot cars allowed to run roughshod throughout the city. Supporters praised the vehicles as safer than human drivers and the potential boon for disabled riders. After hours of public testimony, those opposed to the vehicles appeared to have a slight edge over the supporters.
San Francisco is being “pimped out” by big technology companies, a resident named Michael Martinez said during the hearing. He accused Waymo and Cruise of “trotting out blind people and their dogs” to generate sympathy for their cause. “You guys aren’t stupid,” he told the four commission members. “Don’t be stupid.”
But the disabled community wasn’t unified in favor of the expansion. Rebecca Miller, who had visual impairment, urged the commission to vote no, citing concerns about pedestrians and a need for more affordable transportation like transit.
“A car needs to have a driver in it,” a woman who drives for Lyft said. “It’s insane not to have a driver in it.”
For months, San Francisco city officials have been pleading with the state to delay the vote, citing a spate of incidents in which autonomous vehicles have stopped traffic, blocked buses, or obstructed emergency vehicles. The city’s transit agency and fire and police department have all logged complaints with the CPUC, calling for the commission to reconsider the plan for 24/7 service.
Wisk and Archer Will Collaborate on Air Taxis and End Legal Fight Wisk Aero, owned by Boeing, entered a financial and technological partnership with Archer Aviation and dropped a lawsuit claiming theft of trade secrets.
We asked LG for a burn-in warranty on its OLED monitor — and it’s delivering
LG’s 27-inch OLED monitor. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge
OLED might be the future of monitors, but first, they need to finish addressing burn-in fears. In my recent review of LG’s 27-inch OLED desktop gaming monitor, I wrote how the company’s warranty explicitly excludes “burned-in images resulting from improper usage.” And when I reached out to clarify, I couldn’t get a straight answer about burn-in coverage from the company.
But after four months of conversations with The Verge, LG Electronics has changed that warranty. LG now has a two-year burn-in warranty for its OLED gaming monitor in the US, Christopher De Maria, LG’s head of consumer PR for North America, tells The Verge.
The new warranty, which De Maria says also applies retroactively to any LG 27GR95QE-B monitors that have already been sold, doesn’t exactly spell it out that way. Technically, it says LG will only cover “normal and proper use” and specifically excludes “Damage or failure of the Product resulting from misuse [or] abuse.”
But LG Electronics product marketing director David Park makes it pretty clear: “Now, as long as you use the monitor as intended (personal PC monitor) in a residential setting (does not support commercial usage like retail signage display) burn-in is covered.”
“Normal use means the product is used for what it was created to do. In this case that is gaming (professional and casual) as well as desktop computing such as Windows, etc,” De Maria tells The Verge.
That’s important because companies will often take evidence of damage as evidence of abuse, like how some companies will deny warranty service on water-resistant phones if any water penetrates inside. For years, OLED enthusiasts and monitor manufacturers have warned that you shouldn’t leave the same content on the screen for too long, some even going so far as to hide the Windows taskbar and browser chrome to avoid burn-in.
But LG Display and Samsung Display, the companies that make the OLED panels inside these monitors, now have so many built-in protections and manage their brightness so much that they’re confident they can stave off burn-in for quite some time.
So confident that they offer a burn-in warranty to monitor manufacturers — some of which don’t pass along that warranty to you.
Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge
Another image of LG’s 27-inch gaming OLED.
Acer and Asus, which also sell monitors with the same LG Display panel, still don’t cover burn-in. Neither answered our question about why they don’t pass along LG Display’s burn-in warranty to their own customers, with the Acer Predator X27U and the Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM.
“While burn-in is not considered part of our formal 3-year monitor warranty coverage, in practice, our customer care team has discretion to assist customers with this rare issue and authorize repair services, free-of-charge,” says Acer media relations manager Erin Davern.
Asus gaming PR lead Cat Tompkins said the company would need to talk to LG about its burn-in warranty before providing an official statement for this story.
Dell’s Alienware and Corsair both sell OLED monitors with three-year burn-in warranties, and Alienware even offers next-business-day replacement. Corsair uses the same LG Display screen, while Alienware uses a Samsung QD-OLED panel.
Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge
Alienware currently offers large curved ultrawide QD-OLED screens from Samsung.
“Our warranty is built around the fact that we trust in that pixel refresh function to help mitigate burn-in,” says Alienware PR specialist Frank Cestone.
“When QD-OLED technology was introduced, we knew there was an opportunity to address the broader concerns around OLED reliability,” Dell VP of display technologies Yoon Lee tells The Verge. She writes that Dell saw it as an opportunity to “further differentiate Alienware from its competitors.”
I would still argue that two or even three years of burn-in protection isn’t necessarily enough for a device you could easily use for a decade — but going from a zero-year guarantee to a two-year one is a big move for LG.
How to verify your Threads account using your Mastodon profile
Image: Samar Haddad / The Verge
As explained in a recent article, Meta has rolled out the ability to verify a link to your Threads profile on social media platforms like Mastodon, according to a Threads post from Instagram head Adam Mosseri. In other words, the Mastodon account on your profile will show a verified checkmark for a Threads profile — so you’re using your Threads account to signal to people looking at your profile on Mastodon that you own the Threads link you’re pointing to.
It’s a pretty straightforward process. However, while it worked for us, at least one Verge staffer had problems with it, as did some others who tried it, so there’s a chance it may not work for you.
Here’s how we were able to do it:
Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge
Now, my Threads account is verified on Mastodon.
On Threads, go to your profile (using the bottom-right profile icon).
Select the Edit profile button.
Where it says Link, add your Mastodon profile URL. (You can do this by copying and pasting your full Mastodon URL — say, https://mastodon.social/@jaypeters — from your browser into the Link box in Threads.)
Now, go to your Mastodon profile and select Edit Profile. (This may differ slightly depending on the app you use.)
There should be a place (again, depending on the app you use) to add a new link. Add your Threads profile URL and save the changes. (You can do this by copying and pasting your Threads URL — say, https://mastodon.social/@jaypeters — from your browser into Mastodon.)
After you make and save that change, your Mastodon profile should show a green verification checkmark next to your Threads profile URL.
Here are the funniest things being auctioned off at Twitter HQ
Yup, even the building signs are up for grabs. Providing you’re the one arranging the ‘grabbing’. | Photo by David Odisho/Getty Images
Now that Elon Musk’s plan to rebrand Twitter to X is in motion, the company is looking to sell a bunch of stuff tied to its previous image in what feels like a comically unhinged estate sale. Hundreds of items from X’s San Francisco headquarters will be available to buy via an online auction next month that’s running from September 12th to 14th.
Everything currently has an opening bid set at $25 so there’s the potential to grab some real bargains here. Most of the listings are for the kind of office equipment you’d expect from a big corporation, like desks, printers, and laptop docking stations. Several of the lots being advertised — such as soundproof office booths and designer chairs — were also listed in an auction back in January. There’s plenty of new stuff up for grabs though, and some of it toes the line between tragic and downright amusing.
Here are some of our favorite listings from the Twitter Rebranding auction:
Image: X / Heritage Global Partners
Looks a little breasy, though the lack of roof will likely require this to be installed inside anyway.
Playfully dubbed “The Lodge,” this 20 x 20-foot seating booth features four tables and L-shaped benches. The booth was apparently reconstructed from a Montana barn, and can now be yours for as little as $25 (as long as nobody else bids on it!).
Image: X / Heritage Global Partners
This could genuinely be a sweet momento for someone who’s still mourning this legend.
A perfect gift for any super fan I’m sure. This 13-foot long mural uses screenshots of celebrity tweets paying tribute to Robin Williams to form a mosaic of the beloved comedian.
Here’s your chance to own a unique collector's item or two. Now that X is de-feathering its brand, these bird-themed props could find refuge in your home instead. Most of these are decorative signs or wall art, but there’s also an attractive wooden coffee table or a “Larry art boulder” for those who can spare the room. If that’s not iconic enough though...
Yep, you can take home the Twitter logo building fascias located on 10th street and Jessie street. By which I mean, you literally need to take them. A note on these listings discloses that these signs are still mounted on the side of X’s HQ, and that the buyer will be responsible for “hiring an SF Licensed Company with appropriate permits” to remove them. It’s evidently too much hassle for Musk to arrange himself.
Pretty self-explanatory. I can’t imagine their new homes will have as much history with these symbols as Twitter did, but perhaps there’s a boujiee internet cafe somewhere that can make good use of them.
Image: X / Heritage Global Partners
I think we’d all like to know, honestly.
An agamograph (for those unaware) is a type of image that changes depending on what angle you view it from. In this example, the piece shifts from a wide-eyed emoji, to the question “What’s Happening?” — something I’m sure the remaining legacy employees at X have been asking themselves for months.
Image: X / Heritage Global Partners
I absolutely would buy this myself if shipping it to the UK wouldn’t bankrupt me.
Okay, honestly this is kind of cute. Here’s hoping someone buys it for their cottage-core-loving girlfriend or something so it doesn’t end up in the trash.
Image: X / Heritage Global Partners
Made good use of all those Google Jamboards huh...
There are almost 100 individual listings for Google’s 55-inch interactive whiteboard, most of which are apparently brand new and still in their original packaging. If you want to buy one from Google directly it’ll set you back almost $5,000 so the $25 starting bid on these might be more palatable. It’s a little depressing to imagine that all these Google Jamboards have just been gathering dust considering they’re such a hefty investment.
Samsung is kicking off its One UI 6 beta program
EMBARGOED until February 1st 2023 at 1PM ET | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge
Samsung is launching its beta program for One UI 6, its version of Android that’s based on Android 14. Key features for this next revision are a simplified design and more customization options.
On the design front, “many elements have been tweaked to create a more modern look and feel,” according to a press release from Samsung. That includes a new default font and new emoji you can use from the Samsung Keyboard. The company has also updated the look of the Quick Panel so that you can more easily get to commonly-used features.
Image: Samsung
Two screenshots showing what you can expect in Samsung’s One UI 6.
As for customization, One UI 6 will let you choose specific lock screens that are tied to certain Modes and Routines, which sounds a lot like what you can do with the iPhone’s lock screens and Focus modes.
Unfortunately, the One UI 6 beta will only be available on the Galaxy S23 lineup to start — if you’re about to pick up one of Samsung’s latestfoldables, you’re out of luck for now. But if you’ve got an S23 phone and you’re in the US, Germany, or South Korea, you can check out the One UI 6 beta beginning Thursday.
Dozens of Children Die in Hot Cars Each Year. Back-Seat Sensors Could Save Them. A moment of forgetfulness by a distracted or sleep-deprived parent can be devastating. Experts and child-safety advocates have called for interior motion sensors in all vehicles.
Google Docs and Drive are getting support for eSignatures
Users will be able to request full signatures or initials, with the ability to auto-generate a date for when it was signed. | Image: Google
Google is adding native support for eSignatures to Docs and Drive in an attempt to make it easier for users to request signatures and sign documents from within its cloud-based productivity software, the company has announced. Google is now releasing the ability to request and leave eSignatures in beta, after more than a year of testing the feature in alpha.
There are plenty of pieces of software that already offer eSignature support, ranging from cloud-based options like Dropbox through to local programs like Adobe Acrobat. So Google’s addition of this feature is more about offering parity with its competitors rather than forging new ground, and means user’s shouldn’t have to switch between different apps and tabs as much while working on contracts once it’s rolled out.
Image: Google
The signature request interface in Drive.
Screenshots published by Google show how Docs and Drive users will be able to request a full signature or initials from recipients, and there’s also a “date signed” box that can be set to auto-fill. Multiple signature requests can be generated from the same template contract, and Google says it also includes the ability to track the status of pending signatures. It sounds like you’ll only be able to request signatures from Gmail users for the time being; Google’s blog post notes that “the ability to request an eSignature from non-Gmail users” won’t arrive until later this year.
Although the feature is leaving alpha and entering beta, Google’s eSignature feature won’t be widely available to all Workspace users just yet. Workspace individual subscribers will get access to an open beta of the feature in the next couple of weeks, but other Workspace Business or Enterprise subscribers will only get access if their admins specifically request it via this form. There’s no mention of if or when the feature might come to Google’s free personal accounts.
Logitech’s new laptop stand and keyboard folds down into a cute little box
When set up, the Casa Pop-Up desk looks like any other laptop stand. | Image: Logitech
Logitech’s Casa Pop-Up Desk is the company’s new attempt to offer a neat and ergonomic desk setup that can be easily folded away at the end of the day. For £179 (around $227, though Logitech is yet to confirm a US release), you get the laptop stand itself, as well as a wireless keyboard and trackpad that tuck inside of it.
Although it’s almost certainly cheaper to put together the same setup more cheaply with accessories from different manufacturers, the appeal of the Casa Pop-Up Desk is how neatly everything fits together when not in use. You’ve got your “Casa Keys” wireless keyboard and your “Casa Touch” touchpad, and they’re designed to fit inside the “Casa Book” laptop stand when you pack everything away at the end of the day. The stand also includes an additional storage slot, which Logitech says fits things like charging cables or stationary.
Image: Logitech
Once packed away, the stand can go on your shelf next to other aesthetically pleasing things.
The Casa Pop-Up Desk is available in off-white, rose, and green / graphite in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. We’ve checked in with Logitech to see when it might get a wider release, including in the US.
Amid Sextortion’s Rise, Computer Scientists Tap A.I. to Identify Risky Apps Researchers who found that a fifth of social networking apps have received multiple user complaints about sexual exploitation have launched a website to help parents vet apps.
A Canadian woman says she has gotten over 50 Amazon packages she didn’t order
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
A woman in British Columbia, Canada, has received over 50 Amazon packages that she’s never asked for, as reported by CBC. As a result of getting these shipments, which she hasn’t had the chance to refuse upon arrival, the United Parcel Service (UPS) has sent her customs bills for more than $300.
“They keep coming and it just doesn’t end,” Anca Nitu said to CBC. Nitu told the news outlet that it’s somehow tied to her own Amazon account — one that she said has been sitting dormant.
Amazon told CBC in a written statement that Nitu’s case has been addressed and “corrective action” is being taken. The company advises anyone receiving packages unexpectedly to report it using the Report Unwanted Package form online.
This isn’t the same glitch as the time Sonos sent $15,000 worth of products in 30 shipments (6x what was ordered) to an unsuspecting apartment dweller. Sonos initially charged them for the speakers and only offered a refund if they sent them back. Sonos eventually blinked and let the person keep the speakers, as we all learned that FTC rules say, “you never have to pay for things you get but didn’t order.”
British Columbia’s Better Business Bureau told CBC it believes this is part of a scheme carried out by certain Amazon sellers who are trying to dodge extra fees for returned products. For overseas sellers, the shipping, warehouse, and disposal fees can add up much faster, making it cheaper to ditch unwanted goods by sending them to private addresses in the same region.
For Nitu, it’s possible that her account information was phished or that her identity was otherwise stolen to associate her with certain seller accounts. “I don’t know what Amazon is allowing them to do because they got a hold of my name, my address and my old phone number,” Nitu said.
Meanwhile, Nitu is getting a whole lot of shoes, and while she’s not paying for the product, UPS is charging duty for it. According to the Canadian Border Services Agency website, couriers are to hold packages until duties are paid, which doesn’t seem to be what UPS is doing. UPS declined to comment to CBC until after they’ve talked to Nitu.
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