Apple's long-rumored smart home hub will reportedly be revealed on October 13th. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that the smart home device will be revealed alongside a new HomePod mini and an upgraded Apple TV device.All three products are set to showcase Siri AI, Apple's overhauled AI-powered assistant. The smart home hub, a new product category for Apple, will be the centerpiece. It will reportedly feature a 6-inch display which can be mounted on a wall or sit on a countertop. The hub is "about as thick as an iPhone," according to Gurman, and has bezels similar to older iPads.It sounds like the hub will look a little similar to Apple' …Read the full story at The Verge.

I’ve got a few ESP32 boards sitting in a drawer, left over from past projects and doing nothing. Meanwhile, a few sensors stationed around the house struggle to report back because of a Wi-Fi coverage problem. A motion and light sensor in the other bedroom would drop off some evenings and turn into decorative pieces. I’d priced out a mesh Wi-Fi upgrade before I realized that the fix was already sitting in my drawer. The spare ESP32 boards just needed to talk to each other without a Wi-Fi network.

When I switched to AM4 in 2020, I was surprised by just how much hotter my CPU was running out of the box. My 5900X was averaging 80–85C while playing AAA titles, and that's despite me using a 360mm AIO. Of course, I assumed something was wrong with my cooler, or perhaps even the mounting, so I repasted the CPU with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut and remounted the cooler, tightening the screws in a cross pattern, only to see temps barely improve. At one point, I even considered switching to an AIO with a thicker radiator.

Asha Sharma. | Image: The Verge, Microsoft Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has denied reports that Microsoft is considering selling off its Xbox business. The Information reported in June that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and CFO Amy Hood had been considering spinning out Xbox entirely, and then reported earlier this month that both execs have "more recently supported Sharma's plans to overhaul the unit.""Xbox is not for sale," says Sharma in an interview with The New York Times. "We will do whatever it takes to set the company up for success, and we will look at the right partnerships, the right operating model and everything needed to achieve that."It appears that Nadella and Hood have fav …Read the full story at The Verge.

For some lines of work, just having a powerful gadget is not enough. A portable device can sport top-of-the-line hardware, but if it crumbles when brought into harsh conditions that some workplaces operate in on a daily basis, it's no better than a paperweight. For those who need something tougher, Panasonic has revealed the Toughbook 34 and G3.

This spring, the United States banned all future foreign-made consumer routers - effectively all future routers - unless their makers could 1) convince the US government that they weren't a national security threat, and 2) submit "a detailed, time-bound plan to establish or expand manufacturing in the United States." As of September 9th, Asus now has an exemption from the ban, just in time to bring its first early Wi-Fi 8 routers here. But Asus has not publicly announced any plan to bring manufacturing to the US. It would not even confirm to The Verge whether it had submitted a US manufacturing plan.Initially, Asus spokesperson JJ Guerre …Read the full story at The Verge.

If you think this shot is amusing, check out the panicked look on Zuckerberg’s face when Trump calls on him to speak. | Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images After hosting a meal with Big Tech leaders on Tuesday, President Donald Trump responded to journalist questions about his artificial intelligence announcements in typical fashion. He said his previous claims regarding fears around AI safety being a "hoax" cooked up by Democrats no longer apply now that he's renamed the technology to "Super Intelligence." He brushed off concerns that the government wasn't enforcing enough AI guardrails because US companies are "dominating China." And instead of ushering in federal AI regulations, Trump now has "the smartest people in the world watching over each other."The people in question here are Goog …Read the full story at The Verge.

This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they're going to change your life. Opt in for Optimizer here."I will explode your butthole with this poopmaxxer pesto," a calm Gen Z voice announced from my phone's speakers. "And don't worry, it doesn't taste like poop, unless that's what you're into … I don't know if Italians will approve of this, but it's for my … a-butt-a-hole-a!"What followed in that video was actually a pretty good recipe. Two cups of blanched peas mixed into a fairly standard pesto recipe for a yield of 18 grams …Read the full story at The Verge.

Amazon deliveries could soon come with a new catch: the delivery driver's smart glasses will be snapping photos of anything they see while they're in use, including people and private property. Bloomberg reports that the glasses could take "several thousand captures in a single driver's typical shift," which Amazon plans to upload to its AI Wellspring platform. When asked if customers will be able to opt-out of this, Amazon's Viraj Chatterjee told Bloomberg, "We haven't thought about that." Chatterjee claimed Amazon's only using the data from the glasses to "enhance the delivery process," adding, "The intent has never been stuff like surve …Read the full story at The Verge.

Reddit is further limiting who can use the "Old Reddit" experience as part of its efforts to combat scraping and automated traffic. Reddit recently started forcing users to log in to be able to use Old Reddit, but in the "next few months," the company says that you'll have to be logged in and have used Old Reddit within the last six months from when the change rolls out to be able to continue browsing the platform with the classic experience. Reddit says the six-month window covers "the vast majority of all Old Reddit users." The announcement didn't go into detail, but it's clearly aimed at blocking not just new account creation for bots, …Read the full story at The Verge.

September was the month WordPress plugins really started talking to AI assistants in a serious way. You can now manage backups, forms, online stores, and fundraising campaigns just by asking Claude or ChatGPT, and there’s a good chance you already have some of these plugins… Read More »The post WPBeginner Spotlight 28: WPVibe Hits 50,000 Sites, a New WPForms Dashboard, and Two WordPress Security Updates first appeared on WPBeginner.

For years, my morning routine involved opening Feedly and skimming the news while I sipped my coffee. It was a quiet way to start the day, and it kept me up-to-date on anything happening in the industry. The downside was that I would often see the same story from a dozen different sources, especially during major events like Google I/O or Apple WWDC. It made it hard to parse specific information, and stories with less coverage would get lost in the avalanche.