Switchbot’s latest lock can unlock with a look
SwitchBot’s new keypad has built-in facial recognition. It works with its new retrofit smart lock, the SwitchBot Lock Ultra. | Image: SwitchBot
Smart home company SwitchBot has announced a new version of its retrofit smart lock, and this one you can unlock with your face. The SwitchBot Lock Ultra ($159.99) works with the new SwitchBot Keypad Vision ($99.99), which uses 3D facial recognition technology to unlock your door. The company also launched the SwitchBot Hub 3, a smart home hub th...
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Amazon’s AI voiceovers will talk you through product features
When you select “hear the highlights,” a playback bar will appear at the bottom of the screen. | Image: Amazon
Amazon is testing new AI-generated audio summaries that will let you listen to two AI “hosts” chat about a product’s features. Along with product details, the AI audio clips also draw information from user reviews and information from the web.
The feature is currently available for select products on Amazon’s mobile app, including the Ninja Blender, OSEA Undaria...
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Apple is making a five-part documentary on Martin Scorsese
Apple hasn’t announced when the Mr. Scorsese series will be released.
After directing dozens of documentaries over his 60-year career, legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese will now have his own life chronicled for Apple TV Plus. In its announcement, Apple says the five-part Mr. Scorsese documentary series will explore how themes like “the place of good and evil in the fundamental nature of humankind” have shaped Scorsese’s filmography as far back as his student work at New York ...
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Details leak about Jony Ive’s new ‘screen-free’ OpenAI device
We still don’t know for sure what Ive and Altman are building together, but it isn’t glasses or a phone.
The mysterious device that OpenAI is cooking up with former Apple designer Jony Ive will be pocket-size, contextually aware, screen-free, and isn’t eyewear. Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed details about the project in an internal staff call reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, after announcing the $6.5 billion acquisition of Ive’s AI hardware startup, io.
Altm...
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Fujifilm’s X Half camera is so dedicated to the analog vibes, it can’t shoot RAW
It’s like a shrunken, stripped-down X100.
Fujifilm has a new pint-size addition to its X-series cameras coming in late June: the X Half. It’s an 18-megapixel “half-frame” camera with a portrait-oriented sensor and viewfinder and a fixed 32mm-equivalent f/2.8 lens.
Despite being digital, the X Half is all about the vintage film aesthetic. The $849.99 camera is so dedicated to an analog-like lifestyle that it’s got an entire secondary screen just for picking one of its 13 f...
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Dyson’s new superskinny stick vac is as thin as its hair dryer
Dyson’s new skinny PencilVac looks like a broom. | Image: Dyson
Dyson has announced what it’s claiming is the “world’s slimmest vacuum cleaner.” At first glance, its new PencilVac looks like a broom rather than a vacuum because the battery, motor, and electronics are all integrated into a thin handle that’s just 38mm in diameter — the same thickness as Dyson’s Supersonic r hair dryer. It weighs in at just under four pounds and is powered by the company’...
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Microsoft blocks emails that contain ‘Palestine’ after employee protests
Microsoft employees have discovered that any emails they send with the terms “Palestine” or “Gaza” are getting temporarily blocked from being sent to recipients inside and outside the company. The No Azure for Apartheid (NOAA) protest group reports that “dozens of Microsoft workers” have been unable to send emails with the words “‘Palestine,” “Gaza,” and “Genocide” in email subject lines or in the body of a message....
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News publishers call Google’s AI Mode ‘theft’
The trade association backing some of the biggest news publishers in the US slammed Google’s newly expanded AI Mode, which trades traditional search results for an AI chatbot-like interface. In a statement on Wednesday, the News/Media Alliance said the new feature is “depriving” publishers of both traffic and revenue.
During Google I/O on Tuesday, the company announced that it’s expanding AI Mode to all users in the US, which appears in a new tab directly within Search. When u...
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