Best Robot Vacuums (2024): Mops, Budget Vacs, Great Mapping

Image: Riot Games As the video game voice actor strike continues, SAG-AFTRA has added League of Legends to its list of struck video games. The union organization, consisting of over 160,000 members, also filed an unfair labor complaint against Formosa Interactive, one of the support studios that worked on the game.
SAG-AFTRA members are now no longer allowed to work on or promote League of Legends. If Riot Games employs SAG-AFTRA talent for its esports productions, the strike could potentially i

The end of the line. | Photo Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Bloomberg, Getty Images Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, was sentenced to 24 months in prison for her role in the FTX collapse. She must also forfeit $11 billion.Ellison pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and five conspiracy counts in December 2022 as part of a cooperation agreement with the government. Prosecutors had recommended a lenient sentence because of Ellison’s “ext

The Recorder app is one of the newer features coming to older Pixel Watches. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you have an original Pixel Watch or Pixel Watch 2, good news: Wear OS 5 will begin rolling out today and, with it, a handful of new features.The most interesting one is the Recorder app. This was originally introduced as an exclusive to the Pixel Watch 3, and it lets you record audio directly from the wrist. You can then open it up — along with a transcript —

Getty Though director James Cameron recently expressed some concern about artificial intelligence’s potential to leave people feeling a loss of purpose, the longtime early adopter has now joined Stability AI’s board of directors.
Today, Stability AI — the company behind Stable Diffusion — announced that Cameron has signed a deal to become the newest member of its executive leadership. In a statement, CEO Prem Akkaraju described Cameron’s coming on as“monumenta

It’s hard to believe Nintendo’s Classic Edition consoles are already this old. | Image: Nintendo Japan Somehow, Nintendo’s NES Classic Edition console is already almost eight years old, while the Super Nintendo Classic Edition is about to turn seven. That’s apparently old enough for Nintendo to announce that the Japanese versions of the consoles — the Nintendo Classic Mini Family Computer and the Nintendo Classic Mini Super Famicom — will no longer be eligible

Image: The New York Times The Daily, The Ezra Klein Show, Hard Fork, and Modern Love are some of The New York Times’ most popular podcasts — and next month, only the most recent two or three episodes of each will be free of charge. The Times announced today that it’ll now offer a podcast subscription service through Spotify and Apple for $6 a month or $50 per year, but it’s also erecting a paywall for all archived episodes.
While The New York Times says “the most re

An early prototype of the Super5 OLED Switch Lite upgrade kit. | Screenshot: YouTube Retro Remake has announced that its Switch Lite OLED screen upgrade kits will be available for sale on September 26th at 10PM ET and will start at $49.99. The Super 5 OLED kits come with everything needed for the upgrade, including tools like screwdrivers, and unlike many mods, don’t require soldering or modifications be made to the Switch Lite’s shell to fit extra components in.
A proof-of-concept v

The new modular jackets feature a “reinvention of the button.”| Image: Moncler You can now pre-order these modular jackets designed by Jony Ive. The new product from Apple’s former chief design officer is a collaboration between his design company LoveFrom and the French fashion brand Moncler. Pieces in the LoveFrom Moncler collection start at $2,440 for the parka, $2,575 for the field jacket, and $3,115 for the down jacket. The dashing orange poncho doesn’t appear to be

Photo by Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto via Getty Images The Department of Justice has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Visa, alleging that the financial services firm has an illegal monopoly over debit network markets and has attempted to unlawfully crush competitors, including fintech companies like PayPal and Square. The lawsuit, which was first rumored by Bloomberg, follows a multiyear investigation of Visa, which the company disclosed in 2021.
“We allege that Visa has unlawfully amassed

Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images The Department of Justice has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Visa, alleging that the financial services firm has an illegal monopoly over debit network markets and has attempted to unlawfully crush competitors, including fintech companies like PayPal and Square. The lawsuit, which was first rumored by Bloomberg, follows a multiyear investigation of Visa which the company disclosed in 2021.
“We allege that Visa has unlawfully amassed the

Image: Razer Razer, Wooting, Asus, and SteelSeries are among the keyboard manufacturers that have embraced rapid-fire strafing, letting you press two simultaneous opposing directions at the same time to dodge bullets rather than standing still. But while you’ve typically had to buy specific keyboards (or set up null binds) to get this functionality, Razer has just brought it to years of keyboards and laptops as well.Every Razer keyboard and Blade laptop that works with the company’s

Arlo cameras and video doorbells are getting an AI-powered upgrade with new facial recognition capabilities and the ability to identify specific cars. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Arlo is upgrading its security cameras and video doorbells with additional AI capabilities. The company is adding the ability for its cameras to recognize people and vehicles, and learn to detect custom objects or changes in the surroundings. While an Arlo camera can currently alert you when it spots

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge It’s time for another PlayStation State of Play livestream where Sony showcases its next big game and hardware announcements. Sony has promised we’ll see “more than 20 upcoming PS5 and PS VR2 games from studios around the world” during the 30-minute-plus presentation.
Sony announced Astro Bot during its May State of Play stream, and the game racked up “Game of the Year” nominations once it launched earlier this month. No

I guess we’ll call it a pre-preorder? | Image: Samsung Hardware leaks are common these days, but here’s an unusual one from Samsung: the Galaxy S24 FE preorder page is live even though the phone hasn’t even been announced yet. X user Roland Quandt spotted the preorder page live on Samsung’s site. While it’s probably an error and we expect to see the page disappear soon, this seemingly confirms the S24 FE’s imminent launch — and a few high-level specs.
Fr

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Figma announced Make Designs in June as a way for designers to use generative AI to help start app designs, but early users quickly showed how it could mock up a weather app that looked remarkably close to Apple’s iPhone weather app. Although Figma insisted that the feature wasn’t trained on customer data — in fact, Figma said it didn’t train the off-the-shelf generative AI models used — the company removed the feature to give it mor

The Dab 1a electric motorcycle was inspired by the atomic purple Game Boy Color. | Image: Dab Motors Dab Motors has announced a new finish for its Dab 1a electric motorcycle that’s inspired by Nintendo’s atomic purple Game Boy Color. Customers who preorder the bike, which starts at €14,900 (over $16,500 USD), can opt for a transparent purple body that will look familiar to those who remember playing the handheld.
Created by Dab Motors’ “bespoke service branch,”

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images You should never voluntarily hand your phone to a police officer.
It’s going to become increasingly tempting for the cops to ask and for you to comply, especially as more and more states adopt digital ID systems that allow driver’s licenses and state IDs to be added to Apple Wallet on iOS and Google Wallet on Android. Californians can now add their driver’s licenses and state IDs to their iPhones and Apple Watches in addition to An

Image: Rode Audio tech company Rode is joining the podcast industry’s pivot to video by releasing its own all-in-one video and audio production console for livestreaming and broadcasting.
The Rodecaster Video mimics the design of more professional video switchers: six video inputs (four HDMI and two USB-C), two HDMI outputs, two combo XLR/1/4” jack inputs, 20 possible audio sources (nine stereo channels simultaneously), and seven customizable scene buttons.Image: RodeA glimpse at the

Image: Sony Sony has introduced a new OLED gaming monitor that’s aiming to appeal to competitive players across both PC and PS5 systems. The 27-inch InZone M10S was codeveloped with the popular Fnatic esports team to be “tournament ready,” sporting a 1440p panel that pairs a speedy 0.03ms response time with a variable 480Hz refresh rate.The M10S is available to order online starting today, with a recommended retail price of $1,099.99. Its specs alone make it one of the fastest

The noise-canceling AirPods 4 offer a few premium features the standard model lacks, including a case with a built-in speaker. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge It’s turning out to be a good week for Apple fans. First, the new black Apple Watch Ultra 2 received a $50 discount, and now both versions of the new AirPods 4 are on sale for the first time. The AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation are down to $169 ($10 off) at Amazon, while the standard AirPods 4 are on sale at Amazon for $1

Microsoft’s Xbox Elite Wireless Controller goes translucent | Screenshot: YouTube Microsoft went and made its pricey Xbox Elite 2 controller part of the resurgent transparent tech trend with some fetching new see-through “Cipher Series” color options in its Xbox Design Lab custom controller shop. In addition, the company announced new chromatic options for the D-pads and paddles. Prices start at $149.99 for a custom design, but you’ll pay extra for some options.
The new t

Illustration by Álvaro Bernis / The Verge Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) is partnering with Google Cloud to generate closed captioning for content on the studio’s Max streaming service in the US. WBD will use a new “caption AI” solution that runs on Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform to generate speech-to-text for some shows, starting with “unscripted programming.”
Captions generated for the Max shows will have human oversight for quality assurance. Accord

Screenshot: The Verge Marques Brownlee, the YouTuber known as MKBHD, has responded to backlash over the launch of his new wallpaper app, called Panels. In a post on Tuesday, Brownlee says he’s going to address users’ concerns about pricing and “excessive data disclosures.”
Brownlee revealed the new app as part of his iPhone 16 review on Monday — a video that’s usually among his biggest of the year. But a flood of criticism about the Panels app quickly overshad

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge iPhone users who’ve upgraded to iOS 18 now have the option to record videos while audio is playing, as MacRumors spotted. If you’ve got music playing through the iPhone’s speaker, it’s a quick and dirty way to add a soundtrack to a video instead of bringing a clip into an editor, but audio quality does take a hit.
Previously, in older versions of iOS, opening the iPhone’s camera app and switching to video mode would cause