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If you have this power bank, you should stop using it. | Image: Anker

Anker says it’s recalling its 321 Power Bank (PowerCore 5K, model number A1112), citing a fire risk posed by a manufacturing defect. The 321 is a compact power bank with two ports — one for USB-C and one for USB-A. Anker says “only a small number” produced after March 2023 are affected, but it’s recalling all of them anyway.
Look for “Anker 321 Power Bank (PowerCore 5K, Black), Model: A1112” in the white text printed on the bottom to see if you have this model. If you do, Anker urges you to stop using it immediately. Fill out this form, including the serial number, to stake your claim for a replacement 533 Power Bank the company is offering affected owners. Try to track down your proof of purchase before you head over there, as it says that will speed the process along.

Image: Anker
Here’s where you’ll find the relevant details.

As a reminder, don’t throw your batteries away! Not only is e-waste a huge problem but tossing batteries can cause fires. Anker offers several links for responsibly disposing of them in various countries. (US users can go to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website or Call2Recycle to find out how to get rid of theirs.)
This isn’t the only recall Anker has live right now. The company also recalled the 535 Power Bank last year, after it was found to be the likely culprit in a Maryland house fire.

If you have this power bank, you should stop using it. | Image: Anker

Anker says it’s recalling its 321 Power Bank (PowerCore 5K, model number A1112), citing a fire risk posed by a manufacturing defect. The 321 is a compact power bank with two ports — one for USB-C and one for USB-A. Anker says “only a small number” produced after March 2023 are affected, but it’s recalling all of them anyway.

Look for “Anker 321 Power Bank (PowerCore 5K, Black), Model: A1112” in the white text printed on the bottom to see if you have this model. If you do, Anker urges you to stop using it immediately. Fill out this form, including the serial number, to stake your claim for a replacement 533 Power Bank the company is offering affected owners. Try to track down your proof of purchase before you head over there, as it says that will speed the process along.

Image: Anker
Here’s where you’ll find the relevant details.

As a reminder, don’t throw your batteries away! Not only is e-waste a huge problem but tossing batteries can cause fires. Anker offers several links for responsibly disposing of them in various countries. (US users can go to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website or Call2Recycle to find out how to get rid of theirs.)

This isn’t the only recall Anker has live right now. The company also recalled the 535 Power Bank last year, after it was found to be the likely culprit in a Maryland house fire.

Read More 

Nanoleaf’s smart ceiling lights offer hundreds of colors and an array of impressive lighting effects. | Image: Nanoleaf

The days are getting brighter, but with the current heatwave plaguing much of the US, how many of us can really go out and enjoy it? Luckily, Nanoleaf’s Skylight Smarter Kit is on sale for the first time, offering the rest of us a way to add some brightness to our day without melting to death. Normally $249.99, right now, you can buy the three-pack kit for $229.99 at Amazon, Best Buy, and directly from Nanoleaf.

Designed to mimic a skylight, Nanoleaf’s full-color LED ceiling lights can bring a bit of the sun into the comfort of your air-conditioned home. They feature exceptionally bright, tunable lights that radiate a whopping 4,200 lumens of brightness combined, while their modular design means you can build out different patterns or add more panels later for added flexibility. The lighting panels — only one of which needs to be wired — are also compatible with a number of platforms, including Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, with Nanoleaf promising Matter support soon.
Even cooler, though, is that the lights offer hundreds of dynamic color effects and lighting scenes, so you can change the “weather” to “gentle rain” when the summer days make you long for relief from the heat. Nanoleaf’s AI-generated dynamic effects are impressive, too. For example, if you were to type in something like “tropical paradise,” the Magic Scene creator would generate effects designed to mimic the sea. As an added bonus, the lights can sync with ambient music and sound, making them great for setting the mood, especially at parties.

Read our comparison of the Nanoleaf Skylight and Aqara’s T1M.

If you want to beef up your home security ahead of your summer travels, right now, one of our favorite outdoor floodlight cameras is down to one of its best prices to date. Normally $89.99, you can currently buy the Blink Wired Floodlight Camera for just $59.99 ($30 off) at Amazon and The Home Depot. That’s the camera’s second-best price yet and only $10 shy of the all-time low we saw in January.

For the price, Blink’s entry-level security camera has a lot going for it, including 1080p resolution and impressively bright 2,600-lumen lights that are easy to adjust. Unlike your typical outdoor security camera, it also has a loud 105dB siren that’s designed to scare away any potential intruders, allowing for greater peace of mind. You can control it via Amazon Alexa, too, and mount it either horizontally or vertically depending on your needs.
Of course, there are tradeoffs. The audio isn’t great and you don’t get tunable lighting, for one, and motion detection is limited to 20 feet. Plus, you’ll have to pay a $3 monthly fee to take advantage of features like person detection and cloud recording (or purchase a $49.99 Blink Sync Module 2 for local storage). Still, if you just need a simple way to add some extra security to your home, the Blink Wired Floodlight Camera is a good investment at the current price.

A few more deals worth checking out

AirTags are great, but one of their major flaws is that they lack a keychain hole for clipping them to things. Thankfully, Woot is discounting Apple’s official leather AirTag Loops through June 14th, letting you snag a single AirTag Loop for $9.99 ($29 off) or a pair for $14.99 ($63 off). We prefer Apple’s discontinued leather accessories over their FineWoven counterparts, mainly because they show signs of wear and tear far less easily.

Best Buy is selling the 40mm Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 with Bluetooth starting at $199.99 ($100 off), an all-time low. The standard model features support for Wear OS 4 and a bioelectrical impedance sensor for tracking body fat and body mass index. Samsung phone owners will get the most mileage out of the wearable, though, as they also get access to extra perks like EKGs and contactless payments via Samsung Pay / Wallet. Read our review.
Right now, you can buy a full-price Apple HomePod Mini and get a second for 50 percent off as a part of Verizon’s latest promo. That means you’ll pay $149.99 instead of $199.99 for a pair, which is nice if you want to use a pair in stereo mode or gift one to your dad for Father’s Day and keep the other for yourself. Apple’s Siri-enabled smart speaker isn’t quite as capable as the second-gen HomePod, but it offers good sound for its size and impressive integration with other Apple devices. Read our review.

Amazon’s Smart Plug is down to just $19.99 ($5 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Staples, which matches its best price of the year. The handy smart home accessory lets you add “smarts” to traditional gadgets like lamps and fans, giving you the ability to control them with the Alexa app or your voice (even without a dedicated hub). However, be aware that the smart plug only works with Alexa and indoor electronics.

Nanoleaf’s smart ceiling lights offer hundreds of colors and an array of impressive lighting effects. | Image: Nanoleaf

The days are getting brighter, but with the current heatwave plaguing much of the US, how many of us can really go out and enjoy it? Luckily, Nanoleaf’s Skylight Smarter Kit is on sale for the first time, offering the rest of us a way to add some brightness to our day without melting to death. Normally $249.99, right now, you can buy the three-pack kit for $229.99 at Amazon, Best Buy, and directly from Nanoleaf.

Designed to mimic a skylight, Nanoleaf’s full-color LED ceiling lights can bring a bit of the sun into the comfort of your air-conditioned home. They feature exceptionally bright, tunable lights that radiate a whopping 4,200 lumens of brightness combined, while their modular design means you can build out different patterns or add more panels later for added flexibility. The lighting panels — only one of which needs to be wired — are also compatible with a number of platforms, including Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, with Nanoleaf promising Matter support soon.

Even cooler, though, is that the lights offer hundreds of dynamic color effects and lighting scenes, so you can change the “weather” to “gentle rain” when the summer days make you long for relief from the heat. Nanoleaf’s AI-generated dynamic effects are impressive, too. For example, if you were to type in something like “tropical paradise,” the Magic Scene creator would generate effects designed to mimic the sea. As an added bonus, the lights can sync with ambient music and sound, making them great for setting the mood, especially at parties.

Read our comparison of the Nanoleaf Skylight and Aqara’s T1M.

If you want to beef up your home security ahead of your summer travels, right now, one of our favorite outdoor floodlight cameras is down to one of its best prices to date. Normally $89.99, you can currently buy the Blink Wired Floodlight Camera for just $59.99 ($30 off) at Amazon and The Home Depot. That’s the camera’s second-best price yet and only $10 shy of the all-time low we saw in January.

For the price, Blink’s entry-level security camera has a lot going for it, including 1080p resolution and impressively bright 2,600-lumen lights that are easy to adjust. Unlike your typical outdoor security camera, it also has a loud 105dB siren that’s designed to scare away any potential intruders, allowing for greater peace of mind. You can control it via Amazon Alexa, too, and mount it either horizontally or vertically depending on your needs.

Of course, there are tradeoffs. The audio isn’t great and you don’t get tunable lighting, for one, and motion detection is limited to 20 feet. Plus, you’ll have to pay a $3 monthly fee to take advantage of features like person detection and cloud recording (or purchase a $49.99 Blink Sync Module 2 for local storage). Still, if you just need a simple way to add some extra security to your home, the Blink Wired Floodlight Camera is a good investment at the current price.

A few more deals worth checking out

AirTags are great, but one of their major flaws is that they lack a keychain hole for clipping them to things. Thankfully, Woot is discounting Apple’s official leather AirTag Loops through June 14th, letting you snag a single AirTag Loop for $9.99 ($29 off) or a pair for $14.99 ($63 off). We prefer Apple’s discontinued leather accessories over their FineWoven counterparts, mainly because they show signs of wear and tear far less easily.

Best Buy is selling the 40mm Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 with Bluetooth starting at $199.99 ($100 off), an all-time low. The standard model features support for Wear OS 4 and a bioelectrical impedance sensor for tracking body fat and body mass index. Samsung phone owners will get the most mileage out of the wearable, though, as they also get access to extra perks like EKGs and contactless payments via Samsung Pay / Wallet. Read our review.
Right now, you can buy a full-price Apple HomePod Mini and get a second for 50 percent off as a part of Verizon’s latest promo. That means you’ll pay $149.99 instead of $199.99 for a pair, which is nice if you want to use a pair in stereo mode or gift one to your dad for Father’s Day and keep the other for yourself. Apple’s Siri-enabled smart speaker isn’t quite as capable as the second-gen HomePod, but it offers good sound for its size and impressive integration with other Apple devices. Read our review.

Amazon’s Smart Plug is down to just $19.99 ($5 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Staples, which matches its best price of the year. The handy smart home accessory lets you add “smarts” to traditional gadgets like lamps and fans, giving you the ability to control them with the Alexa app or your voice (even without a dedicated hub). However, be aware that the smart plug only works with Alexa and indoor electronics.

Read More 

We are Venom! | Screenshot: YouTube

Two of my favorite trailers for this week share a common theme: parasitic aliens. The trope has given us some of the finest moments in cinema history; consider the whole Alien franchise, the horrifying dog transformation in The Thing, or that scene from Spaceballs. You could make a convincing argument that Star Trek’s Borg race are parasites of a kind, too.
It’s a versatile premise that lets a movie be as heady or grotesque or action-packed as its creators want. And two of sci-fi’s most beloved fictional freeloaders are showing up this week.
Venom: The Last Dance

Venom doesn’t like being called a parasite, but that’s still basically what it is. In the case of the Klyntar symbiote and Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock, though, the two are more than a parasite and its host. They’re buddies in a charming bromance! This week’s trailer shows more of that, with some hefty stakes and the implication that this is the end of the road for Brock and his greasy, brain-hungry friend. Color me excited for the October 25th theatrical debut of Venom: The Last Dance.
Alien: Romulus

Face-hugging Xenomorph horror is making a comeback, thanks to director Fede Alvarez (Evil Dead) in the new Alien: Romulus trailer. It feels good to see the franchise turn back to its roots; I liked the more ruminative Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, but they weren’t everyone’s cup of tea. In this new trailer, scavengers on an abandoned space station turn into prey. It’s dark and claustrophobic; it has chest-bursters and facehuggers; and it looks absolutely terrifying. The movie hits theaters on August 16th.
MaXXXine

Ti West’s horror trilogy concludes with MaXXXine. It follows Mia Goth’s character as her star rises in 1980s Hollywood amid a murder mystery. True to the series, this one will have its own distinctive vibe, which West has likened to a “noir-ish” movie with “a Terminator-like aesthetic.” I’m in. The movie takes place after the events of X and its prequel, Pearl, and will head to theaters on July 5th.
Honorable video game mention: Metal Slug Tactics

Alright, Metal Slug Tactics isn’t a movie. But it’s a new take on one of my all-time favorite video game series. Tactics is a turn-based strategy take on what’s normally a sidescrolling shooter — think Contra, but so much sillier — known for its difficulty and meticulous sprite-based animation. And it comes from the folks behind Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge and Streets of Rage 4! It’s out this fall for PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 / 5, and Xbox One / Series S / X. Put this straight into my veins.

We are Venom! | Screenshot: YouTube

Two of my favorite trailers for this week share a common theme: parasitic aliens. The trope has given us some of the finest moments in cinema history; consider the whole Alien franchise, the horrifying dog transformation in The Thing, or that scene from Spaceballs. You could make a convincing argument that Star Trek’s Borg race are parasites of a kind, too.

It’s a versatile premise that lets a movie be as heady or grotesque or action-packed as its creators want. And two of sci-fi’s most beloved fictional freeloaders are showing up this week.

Venom: The Last Dance

Venom doesn’t like being called a parasite, but that’s still basically what it is. In the case of the Klyntar symbiote and Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock, though, the two are more than a parasite and its host. They’re buddies in a charming bromance! This week’s trailer shows more of that, with some hefty stakes and the implication that this is the end of the road for Brock and his greasy, brain-hungry friend. Color me excited for the October 25th theatrical debut of Venom: The Last Dance.

Alien: Romulus

Face-hugging Xenomorph horror is making a comeback, thanks to director Fede Alvarez (Evil Dead) in the new Alien: Romulus trailer. It feels good to see the franchise turn back to its roots; I liked the more ruminative Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, but they weren’t everyone’s cup of tea. In this new trailer, scavengers on an abandoned space station turn into prey. It’s dark and claustrophobic; it has chest-bursters and facehuggers; and it looks absolutely terrifying. The movie hits theaters on August 16th.

MaXXXine

Ti West’s horror trilogy concludes with MaXXXine. It follows Mia Goth’s character as her star rises in 1980s Hollywood amid a murder mystery. True to the series, this one will have its own distinctive vibe, which West has likened to a “noir-ish” movie with “a Terminator-like aesthetic.” I’m in. The movie takes place after the events of X and its prequel, Pearl, and will head to theaters on July 5th.

Honorable video game mention: Metal Slug Tactics

Alright, Metal Slug Tactics isn’t a movie. But it’s a new take on one of my all-time favorite video game series. Tactics is a turn-based strategy take on what’s normally a sidescrolling shooter — think Contra, but so much sillier — known for its difficulty and meticulous sprite-based animation. And it comes from the folks behind Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge and Streets of Rage 4! It’s out this fall for PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 / 5, and Xbox One / Series S / X. Put this straight into my veins.

Read More 

Image: Lucasfilm Ltd.

Kevin Jenkins is a Star Wars veteran at this point, having worked in a variety of design roles across multiple films, ranging from Rogue One to The Rise of Skywalker. But as production designer on the Disney Plus series The Acolyte, he faced an entirely new challenge: finding a look that doesn’t rely on Star Wars staples like Stormtroopers or Star Destroyers. “Unlike other Star Wars, this wasn’t to be found in a book,” Jenkins tells The Verge. “When I did the sequels, and even when the prequels were done, we had that template of Star Wars to go from. And [on The Acolyte], we took away 75 percent of the template.”
That’s because the show jumps back in time to a century before The Phantom Menace. It’s the first live-action project to take place during the High Republic era, a time of comparative peace and prosperity. There’s no galactic war, no evil empire, and no rebels fighting against it. That opened up room for the story to explore new characters while also giving the visual team a lot of space to figure out what an older Star Wars era could look like without many of its most iconic elements.

“It provided an opportunity to be almost unrestrained looking for whatever this look might be, without being beholden to very much,” says Jenkins. “I had a cleaner slate,” adds costume designer Jennifer Bryan. “I didn’t have as many restrictions [as if] it had fallen closer within the timeline that has already been filmed and televised.”
Naturally, this did create some challenges. Jenkins notes that when you take away many of those iconic Star Wars visuals, it can be hard to articulate what makes something visually fit within the universe. “There are certain tricks to Star Wars, in the sense that it comes back to the original sets and Ralph McQuarrie,” he says. “It’s like a style in architecture. You can look at different styles and go, ‘That’s a Brutalist building, that’s Art Deco.’”

Image: Lucasfilm Ltd.

Image: Lucasfilm Ltd.

Image: Lucasfilm Ltd.

The Wookie Jedi Kelnacca (Joonas Suotamo) next to a speeder bike designed for cruising.

There are still a few anchor points in the show. The sprawling city-planet of Coruscant, which featured heavily in the prequels, is present in The Acolyte, as it’s home to the Jedi Temple. The Jedi appear as well — but with a slightly different look. Bryan describes the Jedi robes in the show as “more refined” to fit the time period. “It’s definitely more put together and more thought out,” she explains. “Especially for Yord (Charlie Barnett), who you meet in the first two episodes. He’s quite fastidious. He’s like a dapper Jedi.”
Bryan says her process for designing many of the show’s looks is a bit like reverse engineering. Viewers should be able to see a natural throughline from the fashion in The Acolyte to later films and shows. Jedi robes are just one example — not just their cut but the color as well. “Their uniforms I did in ivories and off-whites, colors that you identify with peace and that aren’t as dark and foreboding,” Bryan explains. The overall goal was to “bring elegance to the Jedi.”
A similar process was involved for the technology and vehicles. There are few droids in The Acolyte, for instance, because the technology isn’t as advanced as in later films. This ties into the story: main characters Osha (Amandla Stenberg) works as a ship mechanic in a time when astromech units like R2-D2 are rare. Instead, she has Pip, a handheld tool that’s also an adorable bot. Similarly, Jenkins points to the Jedi speeder bikes featured in early episodes: they’re purely for exploration, as opposed to most Star Wars vehicles, which are designed for combat.

Image: Lucasfilm Ltd.
Mae (Amandla Stenberg) wears armor that includes both chainmail and bamboo.

Not everything in the show is inspired by the history (or future, depending how you look at it) of Star Wars, though. Bryan says she pulled a lot of ideas from real historical cultures, from the Roman Empire to samurai warriors. That led to one of the show’s most distinctive looks: the assassin Mae (Stenberg), whose armor combines chainmail with a chestplate made of bamboo. “You think of bamboo as a yielding plant, swaying in the breeze,” Bryan explains. “But it’s deceptive. Used the right way, it becomes a protective material.”
The result is a show that not only looks different from the rest of the franchise but is also arguably more accessible because of it. The nods to other Star Wars stories are there for fans, but not necessary for understanding The Acolyte. “This show has no barrier for entry, much like the original Star Wars when I first saw it in 1977,” says Jenkins. “It explains itself in its own way. There’s no homework to do, either visually or story-wise.”

Image: Lucasfilm Ltd.

Kevin Jenkins is a Star Wars veteran at this point, having worked in a variety of design roles across multiple films, ranging from Rogue One to The Rise of Skywalker. But as production designer on the Disney Plus series The Acolyte, he faced an entirely new challenge: finding a look that doesn’t rely on Star Wars staples like Stormtroopers or Star Destroyers. “Unlike other Star Wars, this wasn’t to be found in a book,” Jenkins tells The Verge. “When I did the sequels, and even when the prequels were done, we had that template of Star Wars to go from. And [on The Acolyte], we took away 75 percent of the template.”

That’s because the show jumps back in time to a century before The Phantom Menace. It’s the first live-action project to take place during the High Republic era, a time of comparative peace and prosperity. There’s no galactic war, no evil empire, and no rebels fighting against it. That opened up room for the story to explore new characters while also giving the visual team a lot of space to figure out what an older Star Wars era could look like without many of its most iconic elements.

“It provided an opportunity to be almost unrestrained looking for whatever this look might be, without being beholden to very much,” says Jenkins. “I had a cleaner slate,” adds costume designer Jennifer Bryan. “I didn’t have as many restrictions [as if] it had fallen closer within the timeline that has already been filmed and televised.”

Naturally, this did create some challenges. Jenkins notes that when you take away many of those iconic Star Wars visuals, it can be hard to articulate what makes something visually fit within the universe. “There are certain tricks to Star Wars, in the sense that it comes back to the original sets and Ralph McQuarrie,” he says. “It’s like a style in architecture. You can look at different styles and go, ‘That’s a Brutalist building, that’s Art Deco.’”

There are still a few anchor points in the show. The sprawling city-planet of Coruscant, which featured heavily in the prequels, is present in The Acolyte, as it’s home to the Jedi Temple. The Jedi appear as well — but with a slightly different look. Bryan describes the Jedi robes in the show as “more refined” to fit the time period. “It’s definitely more put together and more thought out,” she explains. “Especially for Yord (Charlie Barnett), who you meet in the first two episodes. He’s quite fastidious. He’s like a dapper Jedi.”

Bryan says her process for designing many of the show’s looks is a bit like reverse engineering. Viewers should be able to see a natural throughline from the fashion in The Acolyte to later films and shows. Jedi robes are just one example — not just their cut but the color as well. “Their uniforms I did in ivories and off-whites, colors that you identify with peace and that aren’t as dark and foreboding,” Bryan explains. The overall goal was to “bring elegance to the Jedi.”

A similar process was involved for the technology and vehicles. There are few droids in The Acolyte, for instance, because the technology isn’t as advanced as in later films. This ties into the story: main characters Osha (Amandla Stenberg) works as a ship mechanic in a time when astromech units like R2-D2 are rare. Instead, she has Pip, a handheld tool that’s also an adorable bot. Similarly, Jenkins points to the Jedi speeder bikes featured in early episodes: they’re purely for exploration, as opposed to most Star Wars vehicles, which are designed for combat.

Not everything in the show is inspired by the history (or future, depending how you look at it) of Star Wars, though. Bryan says she pulled a lot of ideas from real historical cultures, from the Roman Empire to samurai warriors. That led to one of the show’s most distinctive looks: the assassin Mae (Stenberg), whose armor combines chainmail with a chestplate made of bamboo. “You think of bamboo as a yielding plant, swaying in the breeze,” Bryan explains. “But it’s deceptive. Used the right way, it becomes a protective material.”

The result is a show that not only looks different from the rest of the franchise but is also arguably more accessible because of it. The nods to other Star Wars stories are there for fans, but not necessary for understanding The Acolyte. “This show has no barrier for entry, much like the original Star Wars when I first saw it in 1977,” says Jenkins. “It explains itself in its own way. There’s no homework to do, either visually or story-wise.”

Read More 

Phil Schiller may have slightly overstated Siri’s initial abilities. | Photo by Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

When Apple first launched Siri in 2011 alongside the iPhone 4S, the company made a series of very compelling ads showing how you might use this newfangled voice assistant thing. In one, Zooey Deschanel asks her phone about delivering tomato soup; in another, John Malkovich asks for some existential life advice. There’s also one with Martin Scorsese shuffling his schedule from the back of a New York City taxi. They showed reminders, weather, alarms, and more. The point of the ads was that Siri was a useful, constant companion, one that could tackle whatever you needed. No apps or taps necessary. Just ask.
Siri was a big deal for Apple. At the launch event for the 4S, Apple’s Phil Schiller said Siri was the best feature of the new device. “For decades, technologists have teased us with this dream that you’re going to be able to talk to technology and it’ll do things for us,” he said. “But it never comes true!” All we really want to do, he said, is talk to our device any way we want and get information and help. In a moment of classic Apple bravado, Schiller proclaimed Apple had solved it.
Apple had not solved it. In the 13 years since that initial launch, Siri has become, for most people, either a way to set timers or a useless feature to be avoided at all costs. Siri has been bad for a long time, long enough that it has seemed for years that Apple either forgot about it or simply chose to pretend it didn’t exist.
But next week at WWDC, if the rumors and reports are true, we might be about to meet the real Siri for the first time — or at least something much closer to it. According to Bloomberg, The New York Times, and others, Apple is going to unveil a huge overhaul for the assistant, making Siri more reliable thanks to large language models but without much new functionality. Even that would be a win. But Apple also appears to be working on, and may be almost ready to launch, a version of Siri that will actually integrate inside of apps, meaning the assistant can take action on your device on your behalf. In theory, at least, anything you can do on your phone, Siri might soon be able to do for you.

This has obviously been the vision for Siri all along. You can even see it in those iPhone 4S commercials: these celebs are asking Siri for help, and Siri almost never actually finishes the job. It provides Deschanel with a list of restaurants that mention delivery but doesn’t offer to order anything or show her the menu. It tells Scorsese there’s traffic but doesn’t reroute him — and shouldn’t it already know he’s going to be late for his meeting? Siri tells Malkovich to be nice to people and read a good book but doesn’t offer any practical help. So far, using Siri is like having a virtual assistant whose only job is to Google stuff for you. Which is something! But it isn’t much.
Siri’s inabilities have been all the more frustrating because everything it needs to be useful is right there on your phone. When I want pizza, why can’t Siri check my email for the receipt from the last time I ordered, open DoorDash, enter the same order, pay with one of the cards in my Apple Wallet, and be done with it? If I have a Scorsese-level busy day, Siri seems to be right there next to all my contacts, my Slack, my email, and everything else it needs to quickly move stuff around on my behalf. If Siri could take over my phone like one of those remote access tools that lets someone else move your computer’s cursor, it would be unstoppable.

There are really two reasons Siri never lived up to its potential in this way. The first is the simple one: the underlying technology wasn’t good enough. If you’ve used Siri, you know how frequently it mishears names, misunderstands commands, and falls back to “here’s some stuff I found on the web” when all you wanted was to play a podcast. This is where large language models are unequivocally very exciting because we’ve seen how much better speech-to-text tools like Whisper are and how much more broadly these models can understand language. They’re not perfect, but they’re a huge improvement over what we’ve had before — which is why Amazon is also pivoting Alexa to LLMs and Google’s Assistant is being overrun by Gemini.
The second reason Siri never quite worked is simply that neither Apple nor third-party developers ever figured out how it should work. How are you supposed to know what Siri can do or how to ask? How are developers supposed to integrate Siri? Even now, if you want to add a task to your to-do list app, Siri can’t just figure out which app you use. You have to say, Hey Siri, remind me to water the grass in Todoist, which is a weird sentence that makes no sense and, in my experience, fails half the time anyway. If you want to do a multistep action, your only option is to muck around in Shortcuts, which is a very powerful tool but falls just short of requiring you to write code. It’s too much for most people.

AI might also give Apple a chance to end run the whole problem. Its researchers published a paper earlier this year detailing a system called Ferret-UI, which uses an AI model to understand small details of an onscreen image. The researchers even detail how an overall app using Siri might work: OpenAI’s GPT-4 does a good job of broadly understanding what an image is, and then Ferret is able to understand small regions and details. In practice, that might mean one system says, “This is the Ticketmaster app!” and the other says, “That right there is the buy button.”

We should be skeptical about whatever claims Apple makes for Siri. More than a decade ago, Schiller stood onstage and proclaimed that Apple had built a better voice assistant, and it hadn’t. The same might be true now, as the hype for AI continues to move a lot faster than the actual technology. Humane, Rabbit, Google, and others are all working on similar ideas — “agent” is the buzzword of the summer in the AI world — and no one has demonstrated that it’s ready yet.
But if Apple has cracked something here, this could be the first time we ever get to see the real Siri — the Siri we were promised all those years ago. Maybe in the next commercial, Deschanel’s tomato soup will just magically appear at her house, and the Headspace app will fire up to bring Malkovich some inner peace. Maybe, finally, we’re going to get the Siri Apple always wanted to make.

Phil Schiller may have slightly overstated Siri’s initial abilities. | Photo by Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

When Apple first launched Siri in 2011 alongside the iPhone 4S, the company made a series of very compelling ads showing how you might use this newfangled voice assistant thing. In one, Zooey Deschanel asks her phone about delivering tomato soup; in another, John Malkovich asks for some existential life advice. There’s also one with Martin Scorsese shuffling his schedule from the back of a New York City taxi. They showed reminders, weather, alarms, and more. The point of the ads was that Siri was a useful, constant companion, one that could tackle whatever you needed. No apps or taps necessary. Just ask.

Siri was a big deal for Apple. At the launch event for the 4S, Apple’s Phil Schiller said Siri was the best feature of the new device. “For decades, technologists have teased us with this dream that you’re going to be able to talk to technology and it’ll do things for us,” he said. “But it never comes true!” All we really want to do, he said, is talk to our device any way we want and get information and help. In a moment of classic Apple bravado, Schiller proclaimed Apple had solved it.

Apple had not solved it. In the 13 years since that initial launch, Siri has become, for most people, either a way to set timers or a useless feature to be avoided at all costs. Siri has been bad for a long time, long enough that it has seemed for years that Apple either forgot about it or simply chose to pretend it didn’t exist.

But next week at WWDC, if the rumors and reports are true, we might be about to meet the real Siri for the first time — or at least something much closer to it. According to Bloomberg, The New York Times, and others, Apple is going to unveil a huge overhaul for the assistant, making Siri more reliable thanks to large language models but without much new functionality. Even that would be a win. But Apple also appears to be working on, and may be almost ready to launch, a version of Siri that will actually integrate inside of apps, meaning the assistant can take action on your device on your behalf. In theory, at least, anything you can do on your phone, Siri might soon be able to do for you.

This has obviously been the vision for Siri all along. You can even see it in those iPhone 4S commercials: these celebs are asking Siri for help, and Siri almost never actually finishes the job. It provides Deschanel with a list of restaurants that mention delivery but doesn’t offer to order anything or show her the menu. It tells Scorsese there’s traffic but doesn’t reroute him — and shouldn’t it already know he’s going to be late for his meeting? Siri tells Malkovich to be nice to people and read a good book but doesn’t offer any practical help. So far, using Siri is like having a virtual assistant whose only job is to Google stuff for you. Which is something! But it isn’t much.

Siri’s inabilities have been all the more frustrating because everything it needs to be useful is right there on your phone. When I want pizza, why can’t Siri check my email for the receipt from the last time I ordered, open DoorDash, enter the same order, pay with one of the cards in my Apple Wallet, and be done with it? If I have a Scorsese-level busy day, Siri seems to be right there next to all my contacts, my Slack, my email, and everything else it needs to quickly move stuff around on my behalf. If Siri could take over my phone like one of those remote access tools that lets someone else move your computer’s cursor, it would be unstoppable.

There are really two reasons Siri never lived up to its potential in this way. The first is the simple one: the underlying technology wasn’t good enough. If you’ve used Siri, you know how frequently it mishears names, misunderstands commands, and falls back to “here’s some stuff I found on the web” when all you wanted was to play a podcast. This is where large language models are unequivocally very exciting because we’ve seen how much better speech-to-text tools like Whisper are and how much more broadly these models can understand language. They’re not perfect, but they’re a huge improvement over what we’ve had before — which is why Amazon is also pivoting Alexa to LLMs and Google’s Assistant is being overrun by Gemini.

The second reason Siri never quite worked is simply that neither Apple nor third-party developers ever figured out how it should work. How are you supposed to know what Siri can do or how to ask? How are developers supposed to integrate Siri? Even now, if you want to add a task to your to-do list app, Siri can’t just figure out which app you use. You have to say, Hey Siri, remind me to water the grass in Todoist, which is a weird sentence that makes no sense and, in my experience, fails half the time anyway. If you want to do a multistep action, your only option is to muck around in Shortcuts, which is a very powerful tool but falls just short of requiring you to write code. It’s too much for most people.

AI might also give Apple a chance to end run the whole problem. Its researchers published a paper earlier this year detailing a system called Ferret-UI, which uses an AI model to understand small details of an onscreen image. The researchers even detail how an overall app using Siri might work: OpenAI’s GPT-4 does a good job of broadly understanding what an image is, and then Ferret is able to understand small regions and details. In practice, that might mean one system says, “This is the Ticketmaster app!” and the other says, “That right there is the buy button.”

We should be skeptical about whatever claims Apple makes for Siri. More than a decade ago, Schiller stood onstage and proclaimed that Apple had built a better voice assistant, and it hadn’t. The same might be true now, as the hype for AI continues to move a lot faster than the actual technology. Humane, Rabbit, Google, and others are all working on similar ideas — “agent” is the buzzword of the summer in the AI world — and no one has demonstrated that it’s ready yet.

But if Apple has cracked something here, this could be the first time we ever get to see the real Siri — the Siri we were promised all those years ago. Maybe in the next commercial, Deschanel’s tomato soup will just magically appear at her house, and the Headspace app will fire up to bring Malkovich some inner peace. Maybe, finally, we’re going to get the Siri Apple always wanted to make.

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The MSI Claw. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

When I called the MSI Claw an embarrassment in my May 18th review, one commenter pointed out they’d gotten higher benchmark scores than me. Sure enough: MSI had pushed out new graphics drivers and BIOS updates between the time I benchmarked and the time we published.
I’ve now tested those updates. In some of my tests, they’re better. In others, I actually found them worse! Overall, they don’t change my conclusion one bit: the MSI Claw is the worst pick from today’s crop of consumer handheld gaming PCs, and you should steer clear.
Below, you’ll find my new benchmark results in the same games, across all of the Claw’s standard power modes. In almost every test, you’ll see the Claw dramatically behind the competition in speed while using more power.

Worse, I’m still finding the Claw varies wildly between playable and completely unplayable in demanding games where the less expensive Steam Deck has no issues. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, I saw the game repeatedly and inexplicably dip to just 20fps in a cave with no enemies around at 720p and Medium spec, before recovering to a stable 60fps a little while later.
I saw something similar in Cyberpunk 2077, even though the MSI Claw now generally has a higher framerate in that game after updates.
And I’m also now seeing some very weird behavior with the Claw when it comes to power modes. You might expect MSI’s “Performance” mode to be speedier than its “Balanced” mode, right? That’s not what I saw in Cyberpunk 2077 — and when I took a close look at the framerate dips, I noticed they always coincided with an unexpected power dip.

While the Intel Meteor Lake chip consumed a pretty stable 30 watts in Balanced mode, it tried to hit 35, 36, even 37 watts in Performance mode — and couldn’t maintain it, dipping down to 29 watts again and again. Plugged into USB-C power, the Performance mode worked better, continually pulling between 37 and 45 watts of power. Not that the extra power made an improvement in Cyberpunk, unfortunately.
And if you’re seeing higher scores than I am, I highly suggest you run that benchmark another three or four times, because it looks like MSI now runs its chip unsustainably faster for a while after you switch power modes, then throttles back down. The Asus ROG Ally does the same trick, and I always had to run my benchmarks a bunch of extra times there before I start counting, so I don’t throw off the average with outliers. I didn’t need to do that when I first reviewed the Claw.
To MSI and Intel’s credit, at least Dave the Diver feels playable now at a smooth 60fps with only occasional drops, unlike in my original review.

Overall, I think the MSI Claw should never have gone on sale. I’m glad I never had the urge to buy one when it first came out. I would feel cheated, just like the users in MSI’s own forums say they feel cheated, now that MSI has announced not one, but two improved versions less than three months after the original came out.
It certainly doesn’t help that the company put it on sale before giving reviewers a chance to warn anyone.
If MSI is serious about the handheld space, and it sounds like the company is, I think it should offer a trade-in program for buyers of the original Claw. If you want to fix this, MSI, let them pick one of this fall’s revisions at a massive discount.

The MSI Claw. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

When I called the MSI Claw an embarrassment in my May 18th review, one commenter pointed out they’d gotten higher benchmark scores than me. Sure enough: MSI had pushed out new graphics drivers and BIOS updates between the time I benchmarked and the time we published.

I’ve now tested those updates. In some of my tests, they’re better. In others, I actually found them worse! Overall, they don’t change my conclusion one bit: the MSI Claw is the worst pick from today’s crop of consumer handheld gaming PCs, and you should steer clear.

Below, you’ll find my new benchmark results in the same games, across all of the Claw’s standard power modes. In almost every test, you’ll see the Claw dramatically behind the competition in speed while using more power.

Worse, I’m still finding the Claw varies wildly between playable and completely unplayable in demanding games where the less expensive Steam Deck has no issues. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, I saw the game repeatedly and inexplicably dip to just 20fps in a cave with no enemies around at 720p and Medium spec, before recovering to a stable 60fps a little while later.

I saw something similar in Cyberpunk 2077, even though the MSI Claw now generally has a higher framerate in that game after updates.

And I’m also now seeing some very weird behavior with the Claw when it comes to power modes. You might expect MSI’s “Performance” mode to be speedier than its “Balanced” mode, right? That’s not what I saw in Cyberpunk 2077 — and when I took a close look at the framerate dips, I noticed they always coincided with an unexpected power dip.

While the Intel Meteor Lake chip consumed a pretty stable 30 watts in Balanced mode, it tried to hit 35, 36, even 37 watts in Performance mode — and couldn’t maintain it, dipping down to 29 watts again and again. Plugged into USB-C power, the Performance mode worked better, continually pulling between 37 and 45 watts of power. Not that the extra power made an improvement in Cyberpunk, unfortunately.

And if you’re seeing higher scores than I am, I highly suggest you run that benchmark another three or four times, because it looks like MSI now runs its chip unsustainably faster for a while after you switch power modes, then throttles back down. The Asus ROG Ally does the same trick, and I always had to run my benchmarks a bunch of extra times there before I start counting, so I don’t throw off the average with outliers. I didn’t need to do that when I first reviewed the Claw.

To MSI and Intel’s credit, at least Dave the Diver feels playable now at a smooth 60fps with only occasional drops, unlike in my original review.

Overall, I think the MSI Claw should never have gone on sale. I’m glad I never had the urge to buy one when it first came out. I would feel cheated, just like the users in MSI’s own forums say they feel cheated, now that MSI has announced not one, but two improved versions less than three months after the original came out.

It certainly doesn’t help that the company put it on sale before giving reviewers a chance to warn anyone.

If MSI is serious about the handheld space, and it sounds like the company is, I think it should offer a trade-in program for buyers of the original Claw. If you want to fix this, MSI, let them pick one of this fall’s revisions at a massive discount.

Read More 

Cult of the Lamb. | Image: Devolver Digital

Devolver Digital’s keynote events tend to be, let’s say, unique. And the publisher’s presence at Summer Game Fest 2024 was no exception. Like last year, Devolver focused on just a handful of really interesting indie games, which ranged from a game about fighting through an interdimensional catastrophe to an expansion that somehow makes Cult of the Lamb even weirder. There was both a first-person kicker and a thirst-person shooter. If you missed it live, here are all the reveals.

Possessor
Coming to PC and console in 2025
A slick side-scrolling action game from the creators of Solar Ash and the Hyper Light games, Possessor looks absolutely gorgeous. It also sounds like it’ll be plenty challenging. Here’s the official setup:
Play as Luca, the host, and Rehm, her less-than-cooperative counterpart, as they explore a quarantined city ripped apart and flooded by an interdimensional catastrophe. Their only hope of survival is by learning to co-exist.

Tenjutsu
Coming to PC and consoles; no release window
Tenjutsu is the first release from Deepnight Games, a new one-person studio helmed by Sébastien Benard, who previously worked on Dead Cells. The game puts players in the role of a renegade yakuza fighting through the criminal underworld and mixes pixel art visuals with some fast-paced action. In keeping with its retro aesthetic, it’s planned for a release in 202X.

Anger Foot
Coming to PC on July 11th
This is a first-person shooter where you also do a lot of kicking, and also — obviously — collect sneakers. It comes from Free Lives, the studio behind Broforce and Cricket Through the Ages, so you can expect it to be both very silly and very violent when it launches this summer.

The Crush House
Coming to PC on August 9th
The Crush House sounds like a solid concept for a strategy game, tasking players producing a reality TV show circa 1999. But there also appears to be a more sinister side to the game, as you can explore the house at night in search of darker mysteries beyond cast gossip. It’s developed by Nerial, the studio behind the excellent Reigns series.

Expansions for Cult of the Lamb and The Talos Principle 2

In addition to upcoming games, Devolver also showed off some new content for two of its bigger titles. First up, Cult of the Lamb, the surprisingly charming cult simulator, is getting its Unholy Alliance expansion on August 12th. The free update includes some new quests, gear, and items, but more importantly, it adds a co-op mode so you can experience the unhinged game with a buddy.
Meanwhile, on June 14th, the cerebral puzzler The Talos Principle 2 is getting its Road to Elysium expansion. It introduces a host of new challenges spread across three chapters — Orpheus Ascending, Isle of the Blessed, and Into the Abyss — each with their own look and storyline.

Cult of the Lamb. | Image: Devolver Digital

Devolver Digital’s keynote events tend to be, let’s say, unique. And the publisher’s presence at Summer Game Fest 2024 was no exception. Like last year, Devolver focused on just a handful of really interesting indie games, which ranged from a game about fighting through an interdimensional catastrophe to an expansion that somehow makes Cult of the Lamb even weirder. There was both a first-person kicker and a thirst-person shooter. If you missed it live, here are all the reveals.

Possessor

Coming to PC and console in 2025

A slick side-scrolling action game from the creators of Solar Ash and the Hyper Light games, Possessor looks absolutely gorgeous. It also sounds like it’ll be plenty challenging. Here’s the official setup:

Play as Luca, the host, and Rehm, her less-than-cooperative counterpart, as they explore a quarantined city ripped apart and flooded by an interdimensional catastrophe. Their only hope of survival is by learning to co-exist.

Tenjutsu

Coming to PC and consoles; no release window

Tenjutsu is the first release from Deepnight Games, a new one-person studio helmed by Sébastien Benard, who previously worked on Dead Cells. The game puts players in the role of a renegade yakuza fighting through the criminal underworld and mixes pixel art visuals with some fast-paced action. In keeping with its retro aesthetic, it’s planned for a release in 202X.

Anger Foot

Coming to PC on July 11th

This is a first-person shooter where you also do a lot of kicking, and also — obviously — collect sneakers. It comes from Free Lives, the studio behind Broforce and Cricket Through the Ages, so you can expect it to be both very silly and very violent when it launches this summer.

The Crush House

Coming to PC on August 9th

The Crush House sounds like a solid concept for a strategy game, tasking players producing a reality TV show circa 1999. But there also appears to be a more sinister side to the game, as you can explore the house at night in search of darker mysteries beyond cast gossip. It’s developed by Nerial, the studio behind the excellent Reigns series.

Expansions for Cult of the Lamb and The Talos Principle 2

In addition to upcoming games, Devolver also showed off some new content for two of its bigger titles. First up, Cult of the Lamb, the surprisingly charming cult simulator, is getting its Unholy Alliance expansion on August 12th. The free update includes some new quests, gear, and items, but more importantly, it adds a co-op mode so you can experience the unhinged game with a buddy.

Meanwhile, on June 14th, the cerebral puzzler The Talos Principle 2 is getting its Road to Elysium expansion. It introduces a host of new challenges spread across three chapters — Orpheus Ascending, Isle of the Blessed, and Into the Abyss — each with their own look and storyline.

Read More 

Image: iam8bit

The most exciting showcase of Summer Game Fest 2024 is here. The Day of the Devs showcase hosted by iam8bit is, to me, far more exciting than the main Summer Game Fest presentation. While it is fun to get hyped for the big releases, Day of the Devs represents something more concrete. The games featured get their own mini-spotlights with developer commentary and gameplay videos. It gives viewers a clearer picture of what these games are about, especially compared to the seconds-long (and apparently exorbitantly expensive) sizzle reels or teaser trailers shown during the Keigh-3 keynote. My only problem, though, is that there are a lot of games to get excited about, making it hard to narrow it down to the 10 best.

Cairn
Rock climbing isn’t my thing. In fact, it looks terrifying, and that terror is what makes Cairn look so interesting. In Cairn, you must reach the summit of Mount Kami one piton at a time. You can climb anywhere, but just like in real mountain climbing, you’ll often face sheer walls and unpassable overhangs that force you to find another way up. One of the things I was immediately drawn to was the way the character’s legs shake as they climb, giving the game an air of urgency and danger that I want to experience for myself.

Image: Pollard Studio

Karma: The Dark World
Karma: The Dark World is a disturbing-looking game from Pollard Studio. It’s a psychological horror game in which you must investigate the mysteries of the dystopian real world and uncover truths in the gross, wet, and slimy world of people’s minds. It looks freaky in that Silent Hill kind of way, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say the horror hottie looking in the mirror is one of the things that really piqued my interest.

Image: Mossmouth

UFO50
Getting introduced to quirky lil’ games is one of my favorite things about Day of the Devs. Last time, it was Time Flies; this time, it’s UFO50. I love the premise of this game — you play through an assortment of 50 games to see the evolution of a fictional video game developer throughout the 1980s. Each game is complete and unique, and you’ll be able to see graphical and technical improvements in the games as the decade wears on.

Image: Studio Tolima

Koira
With cats overtaking the cute animal video game meta, I’m glad for games like Koira that reassert the supremacy of man’s best friend. I also love how Koira uses music and sound to communicate instead of dialogue or text.

Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure
Can’t have a best-of list without at least one puzzle game. In Arranger, you… well, rearrange tiles to get around the world with every row and column moving when you do. Shuffle your environment around to bring a key to a locked door or get around a barrier by using the end of a row to warp around to the beginning. The game reminds me of Carto, another puzzle game that I loved, which is apt considering one of the developers on that game is working on Arranger.

Image: Crescent Moon Games; Those Dang Games

Screenbound
Screenbound is one of those games where you look at a short clip and immediately get it. It’s a platforming game in which you use a 2D gaming handheld to navigate a 3D space. Defeat enemies in the 3D world that you can only see on the 2D handheld and use objects from the 3D world to solve 2D platforming puzzles.

Image: Clapperheads

Zoochosis
In Zoochosis, you’re a rookie zookeeper tasked with taking care of all of the animals. Even the mutated ones — especially the mutated ones.

Image: Tan Ant Games

Building Relationships
Can’t ignore a pitch that goes, “the most stupid game you’ll see all day.” Building Relationships is a housing dating sim… I think. I love the inherent goofiness of this game, from the silly way Tanat Boozayaangool explains the pun to the way the house protagonist gets around by rolling like a katamari.

Image: Max Inferno

A Little to the Left: Seeing Stars
One of my favorite games from a previous Day of the Devs showcase is getting yet another DLC update, and I’m going to be there no matter what. A Little to the Left lets you bring order to your cluttered life with a collection of puzzles designed to soothe your inner neat freak. Fix something like a messy stack of books the simple way by putting them back on the shelves or go for one of the less obvious solutions by arranging them via color or alphabetically.

Image: Optillusion Games

While Waiting
While Waiting is another one of those games where I’m immediately charmed by the premise. It’s a game about all the shenanigans you can get up to while waiting for other things to happen. If you’re clever enough with how you use your time, maybe you can eliminate waiting entirely.

Image: iam8bit

The most exciting showcase of Summer Game Fest 2024 is here.

The Day of the Devs showcase hosted by iam8bit is, to me, far more exciting than the main Summer Game Fest presentation. While it is fun to get hyped for the big releases, Day of the Devs represents something more concrete. The games featured get their own mini-spotlights with developer commentary and gameplay videos. It gives viewers a clearer picture of what these games are about, especially compared to the seconds-long (and apparently exorbitantly expensive) sizzle reels or teaser trailers shown during the Keigh-3 keynote. My only problem, though, is that there are a lot of games to get excited about, making it hard to narrow it down to the 10 best.

Cairn

Rock climbing isn’t my thing. In fact, it looks terrifying, and that terror is what makes Cairn look so interesting. In Cairn, you must reach the summit of Mount Kami one piton at a time. You can climb anywhere, but just like in real mountain climbing, you’ll often face sheer walls and unpassable overhangs that force you to find another way up. One of the things I was immediately drawn to was the way the character’s legs shake as they climb, giving the game an air of urgency and danger that I want to experience for myself.

Image: Pollard Studio

Karma: The Dark World

Karma: The Dark World is a disturbing-looking game from Pollard Studio. It’s a psychological horror game in which you must investigate the mysteries of the dystopian real world and uncover truths in the gross, wet, and slimy world of people’s minds. It looks freaky in that Silent Hill kind of way, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say the horror hottie looking in the mirror is one of the things that really piqued my interest.

Image: Mossmouth

UFO50

Getting introduced to quirky lil’ games is one of my favorite things about Day of the Devs. Last time, it was Time Flies; this time, it’s UFO50. I love the premise of this game — you play through an assortment of 50 games to see the evolution of a fictional video game developer throughout the 1980s. Each game is complete and unique, and you’ll be able to see graphical and technical improvements in the games as the decade wears on.

Image: Studio Tolima

Koira

With cats overtaking the cute animal video game meta, I’m glad for games like Koira that reassert the supremacy of man’s best friend. I also love how Koira uses music and sound to communicate instead of dialogue or text.

Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure

Can’t have a best-of list without at least one puzzle game. In Arranger, you… well, rearrange tiles to get around the world with every row and column moving when you do. Shuffle your environment around to bring a key to a locked door or get around a barrier by using the end of a row to warp around to the beginning. The game reminds me of Carto, another puzzle game that I loved, which is apt considering one of the developers on that game is working on Arranger.

Image: Crescent Moon Games; Those Dang Games

Screenbound

Screenbound is one of those games where you look at a short clip and immediately get it. It’s a platforming game in which you use a 2D gaming handheld to navigate a 3D space. Defeat enemies in the 3D world that you can only see on the 2D handheld and use objects from the 3D world to solve 2D platforming puzzles.

Image: Clapperheads

Zoochosis

In Zoochosis, you’re a rookie zookeeper tasked with taking care of all of the animals. Even the mutated ones — especially the mutated ones.

Image: Tan Ant Games

Building Relationships

Can’t ignore a pitch that goes, “the most stupid game you’ll see all day.” Building Relationships is a housing dating sim… I think. I love the inherent goofiness of this game, from the silly way Tanat Boozayaangool explains the pun to the way the house protagonist gets around by rolling like a katamari.

Image: Max Inferno

A Little to the Left: Seeing Stars

One of my favorite games from a previous Day of the Devs showcase is getting yet another DLC update, and I’m going to be there no matter what. A Little to the Left lets you bring order to your cluttered life with a collection of puzzles designed to soothe your inner neat freak. Fix something like a messy stack of books the simple way by putting them back on the shelves or go for one of the less obvious solutions by arranging them via color or alphabetically.

Image: Optillusion Games

While Waiting

While Waiting is another one of those games where I’m immediately charmed by the premise. It’s a game about all the shenanigans you can get up to while waiting for other things to happen. If you’re clever enough with how you use your time, maybe you can eliminate waiting entirely.

Read More 

Image: Riot Games

Riot’s tactical shooter Valorant has been a PC-exclusive since it launched in 2020 — but that’s changing very soon. The developer has finally provided some details on the console version of the game, which will be available in a limited beta on the PS5 and Xbox Series X / S starting on June 14th. You can register right here. The beta will be limited to the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Europe, and Japan, and Riot says that it will be “possibly rolling out to remaining global regions shortly thereafter.” There’s no word on when a full launch might happen.
Riot says the console versions of Valorant feature “custom-built gameplay” and that crossplay between console and PC will not be available for competitive reasons. That said, the game will support cross-progression if you choose to play on both PC and console, meaning your skins and progression will carry over between platforms.

Image: Riot Games
Controller Valorant gameplay.

“We were adamant that Valorant’s core, competitive gameplay must feel natural on a controller,” production director Arnar Hrafn Gylfason said in a statement. “And — if we couldn’t deliver on that gameplay promise — we had to be prepared to walk away from it. We hope we nailed it, but ultimately, our players will have the final say.”
A mobile version of Valorant was also announced in 2021, though there has been little word on it since then. The console port will be jumping into a very crowded space for online shooters, going up against not only mainstays like Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Overwatch 2 but also upcoming titles like Marvel Rivals and Sony’s Concord.

Image: Riot Games

Riot’s tactical shooter Valorant has been a PC-exclusive since it launched in 2020 — but that’s changing very soon. The developer has finally provided some details on the console version of the game, which will be available in a limited beta on the PS5 and Xbox Series X / S starting on June 14th. You can register right here. The beta will be limited to the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Europe, and Japan, and Riot says that it will be “possibly rolling out to remaining global regions shortly thereafter.” There’s no word on when a full launch might happen.

Riot says the console versions of Valorant feature “custom-built gameplay” and that crossplay between console and PC will not be available for competitive reasons. That said, the game will support cross-progression if you choose to play on both PC and console, meaning your skins and progression will carry over between platforms.

Image: Riot Games
Controller Valorant gameplay.

“We were adamant that Valorant’s core, competitive gameplay must feel natural on a controller,” production director Arnar Hrafn Gylfason said in a statement. “And — if we couldn’t deliver on that gameplay promise — we had to be prepared to walk away from it. We hope we nailed it, but ultimately, our players will have the final say.”

A mobile version of Valorant was also announced in 2021, though there has been little word on it since then. The console port will be jumping into a very crowded space for online shooters, going up against not only mainstays like Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Overwatch 2 but also upcoming titles like Marvel Rivals and Sony’s Concord.

Read More 

A better symbiosis between smart technology and our favorite kitchen gadgets is part o the future of the smart kitchen. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

A new moment for connected cooking emerges at the Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle. “The world didn’t need a Wi-Fi-enabled rolling pin, and we definitely don’t need Al in a rolling pin.” With this quip, culinary technologist Scott Heimendinger neatly summed up the theme of the Smart Kitchen Summit (SKS) held in Seattle this week.
To be successful, smart kitchen innovations need to address real problems in the kitchen, not just jump on the bandwagon of whatever is the sizzling hot thing in tech.
For example, take the Joule sous vide. One of the earliest smart kitchen gadgets, this beautiful piece of tech was almost impossible to use because it relied entirely on an app and Wi-Fi connectivity. Two things still largely alien to the kitchen of 2015.
Chris Young, former CEO of ChefSteps which developed Joule, told the SKS audience how the decision to not put a screen on the device lost them half their potential customer base. (Joule was rescued by Breville in 2019, which still hasn’t put a screen on it.)
Young’s latest gadget is the Combustion Predictive Thermometer Plus Display, an incredibly smart meat thermometer that not only has the option of a very big screen but doesn’t need Wi-Fi at all.
This type of pivot is emblematic of what I saw throughout the conference this week: a refocusing by the entrepreneurs and companies in the smart kitchen away from sleek, showy gadgets toward developing products built on an understanding of how people actually cook. Many of the solutions I saw and heard about seem designed to make cooking easier, healthier, and more personalized — the latter being something generative AI will clearly play a big role in.
Of course, there’s still plenty of gadgets — from robot chefs to wirelessly-powered appliances. But there’s also a shift toward improving the software that powers the smart kitchen. Rather than rely on individual apps built by appliance manufacturers, platforms like Fresco are working toward a universal kitchen OS — a cross-kitchen experience that can connect our appliances with each other and with the recipes we want to cook.
My ideal smart kitchen is one that knows what I have in my pantry and fridge, can develop me a meal plan based on those ingredients, shop for whatever extra items I need, then have my appliances prepped and ready to go when I start cooking.
While that dream is still a ways off, from what I saw this week, the future of the smart kitchen is coming into focus. I’ll be sharing snippets and stories around the things that caught my attention at the Smart Kitchen Summit over the next few days, so check back often.

A better symbiosis between smart technology and our favorite kitchen gadgets is part o the future of the smart kitchen. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

A new moment for connected cooking emerges at the Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle.

“The world didn’t need a Wi-Fi-enabled rolling pin, and we definitely don’t need Al in a rolling pin.” With this quip, culinary technologist Scott Heimendinger neatly summed up the theme of the Smart Kitchen Summit (SKS) held in Seattle this week.

To be successful, smart kitchen innovations need to address real problems in the kitchen, not just jump on the bandwagon of whatever is the sizzling hot thing in tech.

For example, take the Joule sous vide. One of the earliest smart kitchen gadgets, this beautiful piece of tech was almost impossible to use because it relied entirely on an app and Wi-Fi connectivity. Two things still largely alien to the kitchen of 2015.

Chris Young, former CEO of ChefSteps which developed Joule, told the SKS audience how the decision to not put a screen on the device lost them half their potential customer base. (Joule was rescued by Breville in 2019, which still hasn’t put a screen on it.)

Young’s latest gadget is the Combustion Predictive Thermometer Plus Display, an incredibly smart meat thermometer that not only has the option of a very big screen but doesn’t need Wi-Fi at all.

This type of pivot is emblematic of what I saw throughout the conference this week: a refocusing by the entrepreneurs and companies in the smart kitchen away from sleek, showy gadgets toward developing products built on an understanding of how people actually cook. Many of the solutions I saw and heard about seem designed to make cooking easier, healthier, and more personalized — the latter being something generative AI will clearly play a big role in.

Of course, there’s still plenty of gadgets — from robot chefs to wirelessly-powered appliances. But there’s also a shift toward improving the software that powers the smart kitchen. Rather than rely on individual apps built by appliance manufacturers, platforms like Fresco are working toward a universal kitchen OS — a cross-kitchen experience that can connect our appliances with each other and with the recipes we want to cook.

My ideal smart kitchen is one that knows what I have in my pantry and fridge, can develop me a meal plan based on those ingredients, shop for whatever extra items I need, then have my appliances prepped and ready to go when I start cooking.

While that dream is still a ways off, from what I saw this week, the future of the smart kitchen is coming into focus. I’ll be sharing snippets and stories around the things that caught my attention at the Smart Kitchen Summit over the next few days, so check back often.

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