Home Assistant can completely transform your home into one that's truly smart and helpful. It can automate plenty of mundane tasks and allow you to live more, without having to worry about all the little things throughout the home. Everything from automatically cycling lights, firing up heating, and even managing how much power specific devices use through monitoring, it's possible to create quite a versatile and interactive platform for controlling almost everything.

There's a new twist in the long and winding saga of Redbox's demise: Assets originally belonging to the company's corporate parent, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, may have finally found a buyer. But don't expect a resurrection of Redbox's red kiosks, or Chicken Soup's Crackle streaming service, any time soon.According to a late Wednesday court filing, a company called Grove Street Partners has offered $100 million for so-called "IP Litigation Assets" owned by Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment and its subsidiaries. Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment owned the rights to hundreds of movies, mostly through its subsidiary S …Read the full story at The Verge.

Oh how I miss the time when game demos were all the rage. When they were our one and only avenue into a new game, without massive marketing campaigns with tens of trailers or deep dives. These demos gave us a glimpse of a new game, and we played them a hundred times over, poring over every frame and pixel because that's all we got before a full game came out.

This week, Ring, an Amazon-owned smart security company, announced Search Party, a new feature to help find lost dogs. When someone posts a picture of a lost dog on Ring’s Neighbors app, they will be able to initiate a Search Party. Ring then uses AI to scan footage from nearby outdoor Ring cameras and doorbells for the lost pet. If it’s detected via someone else’s device, that camera’s owner will receive a notification and can choose to share the video with the pet owner.I should be able to choose whether my footage is being searched It’s a great use of AI and has the potential to track down missing pets a lot faster than social media posts or text message chains. This is because it (almost) cuts out the middleman — you. Rather than relying on you to see a message about a missing dog, look at a picture or read through the description of the dog, and then go check your camera feeds to see if it ran by your house, all of that happens in the background. “Your Ring AI assistant is looking for that dog and is going to tell you, ‘Look, this dog I saw looks like this dog that’s missing,’” Ring’s founder, Jamie Siminoff, told me in an interview at Amazon’s event this week. You can then decide whether to share the video or just notify the owner through the Neighbors app, he explained. However, it turns out that Search Party is enabled by default. In an email to customers this week, Siminoff wrote that the feature is rolling out to Ring outdoor cameras in November and noted, “You can always turn off Search Party.” I checked my cameras this morning, and they were all automatically set to enable Search Party. And I’m not alone; Ring users on Reddit have also reported that their cameras have been enabled for Search Party. As Siminoff wrote, I can turn this off, and if I don’t, I will get to review any footage it finds before deciding what to do with it. Ring says no video is shared without the owner’s consent. However, getting opted in by default feels intrusive, particularly for a company with a checkered history around sharing footage with the police. While mass adoption enabled by a default opt-in will undoubtedly make the feature much more effective — and yes, I want to help find my neighbors’ dogs — I should be able to choose whether my footage is being searched. I do get a choice in whether or not to share that alert with the dog’s ownerThis is more about consent than privacy. Essentially, Search Party is working in the same way as Ring’s current AI-powered smart alerts for people, vehicles, and packages. The footage from your camera is analyzed in Ring’s cloud for those things. That’s what happens when you get a Ring alert that a package has been delivered. Only now, when someone else initiates a Search Party in the Neighbors app, Ring can also look for a specific dog on others’ cameras. The difference is that I told Ring I wanted it to search for packages, I didn’t tell it to look for dogs.Again, when it comes to the dog, I do get a choice in whether or not to share that alert with the dog’s owner. It won’t be sent to them automatically. “We don’t want data escaping people’s environment without them knowing,” Siminoff told me.While most people will happily help someone find their lost dog, there is a concern about where this could lead. This week, the company also announced it’s bringing facial recognition to its cameras for the first time. Familiar Faces lets you register images of family and friends in the app so you can get specific alerts about who your cameras see. The combination of Search Party and facial recognition raises the question of whether the Ring cloud could one day be used to search for specific individuals. Ring spokesperson Yassi Yarger told me that there are no plans around this for now. “Search Party was designed to match images of dogs to dogs captured in Ring videos,” she said. “It is not designed to process human biometrics.” Additionally, she said Search Party footage is not included in Ring’s Community Requests service, which allows police and other public safety agencies to request help from the public.As someone who regularly uses her own cameras to locate her pets, I think Search Party could be a great tool, and I will keep it enabled on the Ring cameras at my home. But I still think Ring should have asked before turning it on for everyone.

Shein has announced plans to open its first physical locations in France this November, even as the country works on legislation to regulate the fast-fashion industry, as reported by Euronews and Reuters. The online retailer, which manufactures most of its ultra-cheap clothing in China, will open locations inside department stores across Dijon, Grenoble, Reims, Limoges, and Angers through a partnership with real estate company Société des Grands Magasins (SGM).Until now, Shein has only operated online, aside from the pop-up stores that have appeared in locations like New York City. Its decision to open up stores in France comes just months after the French Senate approved a law that would impose a tax on fast-fashion companies like Shein and Temu based on their environmental impact, as well as ban them from advertising. Shein also faces regulations as a “very large online platform” under the European Union’s framework to rein in big tech, and it was recently hit with a $176 million fine in France over claims it collected user data without their consent.SGM owns the Bazar de l’Hôtel de Ville (BHV) department store chain, and also operates a string of Galeries Lafayette in France stores under a franchise agreement. Shein is supposed to set up shop in both of these stores, though Galeries Lafayette told Reuters it “profoundly disagrees” with the decision, as Shein’s “positioning and practices” contradict the department store chain’s “offer and values.” Galeries Lafayette adds that the move is in violation of its franchise agreement with SGM, according to Reuters.Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo similarly said in a machine-translated statement on LinkedIn that the city “denounces the establishment of Shein” in the local BHV store. “This choice is contrary to the ecological and social ambitions of Paris, which supports responsible and sustainable local commerce,” Hidalgo writes.

I usually try to self-host as many tools as possible, but until recently, I didn't see the point in doing so for an AI tool. The common reasons for self-hosting, such as privacy, security, control over your data, and air-gapped networks, are all valid, especially for enterprise or information security (infosec) use. Outside of those cases, though, it is harder to see the practical benefits of running AI tools locally. I decided to try it anyway by self-hosting an AI-powered research assistant called Maestro, and I quickly understood why it matters.

Strava is suing its long-time partner Garmin, and is seeking to permanently block the company from selling most of its current fitness and cycling gadget lineup. The lawsuit filed in the US District Court of Colorado on September 30th, first reported by DC Rainmaker, alleges that Garmin violated an agreement between the companies by infringing on Strava’s patents for segments — route sections where athletes can compare performance times — and heatmaps that show popular areas for activity.Strava is seeking a permanent injunction to prohibit Garmin from selling or offering any products that provide segments or heat mapping features, arguing that “monetary relief alone is inadequate.” Those demands target Garmin’s Connect fitness tracking platform and the majority of Garmin’s devices, including Edge bike computers, and Forerunner, Fenix, and Epix watches.The lawsuit is surprising, given that these are two of the most recognizable brands in fitness tech and share a lot of integrations between their respective platforms. A trend report that Strava published last year even revealed that Garmin’s decade-old Forerunner 235 was the most popular smartwatch among its worldwide users.The patent for Strava’s segments feature was filed in 2011 and granted in 2015, detailing a system that allows athletes to compare their performances on user-defined routes. Garmin launched the Edge 1000 cycle computer in 2014, which featured its own Garmin Connect segments system. The company later signed a Master Cooperation Agreement (MCA) with Strava in 2015 to bring Strava Live Segments to Garmin devices.In its complaint, Strava says that Garmin violated MCA terms by expanding Garmin-branded segments outside the permitted Strava‑built experience. Separately, Strava claims that Garmin used its patented segment tech to build a competing system across the Garmin Connect platform and hardware ecosystem.Strava also alleges that heat mapping and route suggestion features for Garmin’s devices and Connect platform infringe on two additional patents. One focused on activity heatmaps was filed in 2014, and granted in 2016, with the second covering popularity-based routing features being filed in 2016, and granted in 2017. As DC Rainmaker notes, however, Garmin first introduced heatmaps to Garmin Connect in 2013, prior to Strava’s patent filings.“Garmin received limited permission from Strava to implement Strava Segments on their devices; however, they leveraged this access to carefully study those features, painstakingly copy them, and then release them as Garmin features, and as a result, Strava has sued Garmin to protect its patented inventions,” Strava spokesperson Brian Bell said in a statement to The Verge. “Garmin rejected Strava’s repeated attempts to address Garmin’s infringement informally, forcing Strava to take a stand on the matter and file suit. We do not intend to take any actions that would disrupt the ability of Garmin users to sync their data with Strava, and hope Garmin values our shared users in the same way.”Garmin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

To WikiHow, Google is both tormentor and savior. And on Wednesday, as the search giant mounted its defense in the ongoing ad tech remedies trial, the how-to site came to Google's rescue. WikiHow CEO Elizabeth Douglas described to a court how websites like hers are the middle of an "AI apocalypse." WikiHow, a website that gives step-by-step practical advice, is suffering from a new paradigm shift in how people find information online. Thanks to new AI tools including AI chatbots and Google's own AI Overviews in its search results pages, users across the web are clicking through to websites less and less - and as a result, seeing and clickin …Read the full story at The Verge.

With so many different laptop choices, it's pretty easy to find something within your budget. Of course, I like to look for something on sale, because a steep discount can bring a laptop that was previously out of reach, easily within your budget. Every week, retailers like Best Buy and Amazon offer hundreds, if not thousands of discounts on all types of products.

Microsoft recently announced price hikes for some tiers of Xbox Game Pass, including Ultimate and PC Game Pass. The Ultimate tier, which offers the most games and features (as well as access to PC Game Pass), went from $19.99 per month to $29.99. Those who subscribe to PC Game Pass are now being charged $16.49 per month, up from $11.99.You’ll pay those prices right now if you go through Microsoft’s retail channels to subscribe. Don’t do that! Instead, if you plan to stay with the service, you should consider buying through other retailers that are still selling access to those tiers of service at their previous prices.You can get a one-month subscription to Game Pass Ultimate for $19.99 at Amazon, GameStop, Best Buy, or Walmart. Then there’s the three-month option for $59.99 from Amazon, GameStop, Best Buy, and Walmart, which is like getting one month free at the current rate. As for PC Game Pass, Amazon, GameStop, and Best Buy sell a three-month bundle for $35.99, reflecting the previous price.Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (three-month sub)Where to Buy: $90 $60 at Amazon $90 $60 at Best Buy $59.99 at GameStopPC Game PassWhere to Buy: $49.47 $35.99 at Best Buy (three months) $49.47 $35.99 at GameStop (three months) $49.47 $35.99 at Amazon (three months)

The vast majority of my work can be completed on a laptop, and my requirements for what I need aren't unreasonable. Something fast, light, with a premium feel, that also doesn't run out of battery quickly. I want to be able to close the lid, put it in my bag, and completely forget about it until I need it again. I don't want to think about battery life at all, especially not when it's not in use.

If you've ever read up on how to fix problems in Windows 11 (or earlier versions, for that matter), you already know about DISM. It's a well-known tool that can help restore your system to a working state, and recently, I wrote about how you can use it to create a custom generalized Windows image that includes your installed apps, so you can set up more quickly.