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Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Getty Images

AI search platform Perplexity is launching a new feature called Pages that will generate a customizable webpage based on user prompts. The new feature feels like a one-stop shop for making a school report since Perplexity does the research and writing for you.
Pages taps Perplexity’s AI search models to find information and then creates what I can loosely call a research presentation that can be published and shared with others. In a blog post, Perplexity says it designed Pages to help educators, researchers, and “hobbyists” share their knowledge.
Users type out what their report is about or what they want to know in the prompt box. They can gear the writing more toward beginners, expert readers, or a more general audience. Perplexity searches for information, then begins writing the page by breaking down the information into sections, citing some sources, and then adding visuals. Users can make the page as detailed or concise as they want, and they can also change the images Perplexity uses. However, you can’t edit the text it generates; you have to write another prompt to fix any mistakes.
I tried out Pages ahead of time to see how it works. Pages is not geared toward people like me who already have an avenue to share our knowledge. But it doesn’t seem geared toward researchers or teachers, either. I wanted to see how it can break down complex topics and if it can help with the difficult task of presenting dense information to different audiences.
Among other topics, I asked Perplexity’s Pages to generate a page on the “convergence of quantum computing and artificial intelligence and its impact on society” across the three audience types. The main difference between audiences seems to be the jargon in the written text and the kind of website it takes data from. Each generated report pulls from different sources, including introductory blog posts like this one from IBM. It also cited Wikipedia, which drove the student report vibe home.

Screenshot: The Verge
One of the pages Perplexity generated for me.

The Perplexity-generated page did a passable job of explaining the basics of quantum computing and how AI fits into the technology. But the “research” didn’t go as deep as I could have if I were writing the presentation myself. The more advanced version didn’t even really talk about “the convergence of quantum computing and AI.” It found blog posts talking about quantum inflection points, which is when quantum technologies become more commercially viable and is not at all related to what I asked it to write about.
Then, I asked Pages to write a report about myself, mainly because the information there is easily verifiable. But it only took information from my personal website and an article about me on my high school’s website — not from other public, easily accessible sources like my author page on The Verge. It also sometimes elaborated on things that had nothing to do with me. For example, I began my journalism career during the 2008 financial crisis. Instead of talking about the pieces I wrote about mass layoffs, Perplexity explained the beginnings of the financial crisis.
Pages does the surface-level googling and writing for you, but it isn’t research. Perplexity claims that Pages will help educators develop “comprehensive” study guides for students and researchers to create detailed reports on their findings. I could not upload a research paper for it to summarize, and I couldn’t edit the text it generated, two things I believe users who want to make the most of Pages would appreciate.
I do see one potential user for Pages, and it isn’t one Perplexity called out: students rushing to put out an assignment. Pages may improve in the future. Right now, it’s a way to get easy, possibly correct surface-level information into a presentation that doesn’t really teach anything.
Pages will be available to all Perplexity users, and the company says it’s slowly rolling it out to its free, Pro, and Enterprise users.

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Getty Images

AI search platform Perplexity is launching a new feature called Pages that will generate a customizable webpage based on user prompts. The new feature feels like a one-stop shop for making a school report since Perplexity does the research and writing for you.

Pages taps Perplexity’s AI search models to find information and then creates what I can loosely call a research presentation that can be published and shared with others. In a blog post, Perplexity says it designed Pages to help educators, researchers, and “hobbyists” share their knowledge.

Users type out what their report is about or what they want to know in the prompt box. They can gear the writing more toward beginners, expert readers, or a more general audience. Perplexity searches for information, then begins writing the page by breaking down the information into sections, citing some sources, and then adding visuals. Users can make the page as detailed or concise as they want, and they can also change the images Perplexity uses. However, you can’t edit the text it generates; you have to write another prompt to fix any mistakes.

I tried out Pages ahead of time to see how it works. Pages is not geared toward people like me who already have an avenue to share our knowledge. But it doesn’t seem geared toward researchers or teachers, either. I wanted to see how it can break down complex topics and if it can help with the difficult task of presenting dense information to different audiences.

Among other topics, I asked Perplexity’s Pages to generate a page on the “convergence of quantum computing and artificial intelligence and its impact on society” across the three audience types. The main difference between audiences seems to be the jargon in the written text and the kind of website it takes data from. Each generated report pulls from different sources, including introductory blog posts like this one from IBM. It also cited Wikipedia, which drove the student report vibe home.

Screenshot: The Verge
One of the pages Perplexity generated for me.

The Perplexity-generated page did a passable job of explaining the basics of quantum computing and how AI fits into the technology. But the “research” didn’t go as deep as I could have if I were writing the presentation myself. The more advanced version didn’t even really talk about “the convergence of quantum computing and AI.” It found blog posts talking about quantum inflection points, which is when quantum technologies become more commercially viable and is not at all related to what I asked it to write about.

Then, I asked Pages to write a report about myself, mainly because the information there is easily verifiable. But it only took information from my personal website and an article about me on my high school’s website — not from other public, easily accessible sources like my author page on The Verge. It also sometimes elaborated on things that had nothing to do with me. For example, I began my journalism career during the 2008 financial crisis. Instead of talking about the pieces I wrote about mass layoffs, Perplexity explained the beginnings of the financial crisis.

Pages does the surface-level googling and writing for you, but it isn’t research. Perplexity claims that Pages will help educators develop “comprehensive” study guides for students and researchers to create detailed reports on their findings. I could not upload a research paper for it to summarize, and I couldn’t edit the text it generated, two things I believe users who want to make the most of Pages would appreciate.

I do see one potential user for Pages, and it isn’t one Perplexity called out: students rushing to put out an assignment. Pages may improve in the future. Right now, it’s a way to get easy, possibly correct surface-level information into a presentation that doesn’t really teach anything.

Pages will be available to all Perplexity users, and the company says it’s slowly rolling it out to its free, Pro, and Enterprise users.

Read More 

Photo by Ashley Carman / The Verge

Spotify is now offering refunds to people who purchased its $90 Car Thing dashboard accessory. While the streaming company unceremoniously discontinued its first and only hardware product in 2022, just five months after its release, it recently announced plans to deactivate all remaining Car Things on December 4th, 2024. Users looking to get their money back will need to reach out to Spotify support and provide proof of purchase.
The slight concession comes after a group of Car Thing customers filed a class action lawsuit with the Southern District of New York against Spotify over their short-lived and now doomed accessories.

Car Thing was a simple external screen / remote control for the Spotify app on your phone— most attractive to drivers whose cars lack Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. While the device was fairly simple and likely a sales failure for Spotify, it found new life once it went on fire sale and crafty users took to implementing their Car Things into non-car places like home desk setups and on their keyboards.
Spotify’s slight attempt to make it up to Car Thing owners comes after a rough year that saw its music streaming service increase in price in 2023, reports of further increases coming later in 2024, and a round of layoffs that affected 17 percent of its staff. which subsequently cut off some popular music discovery tools. While a refund is better than nothing, Spotify is still making its customers jump through hoops by digging up years-old receipts (and, according to Reddit posts, breaking up the refund across multiple payments). Refunds or not, there will still be many useless hunks of e-waste left behind.

Photo by Ashley Carman / The Verge

Spotify is now offering refunds to people who purchased its $90 Car Thing dashboard accessory. While the streaming company unceremoniously discontinued its first and only hardware product in 2022, just five months after its release, it recently announced plans to deactivate all remaining Car Things on December 4th, 2024. Users looking to get their money back will need to reach out to Spotify support and provide proof of purchase.

The slight concession comes after a group of Car Thing customers filed a class action lawsuit with the Southern District of New York against Spotify over their short-lived and now doomed accessories.

Car Thing was a simple external screen / remote control for the Spotify app on your phone— most attractive to drivers whose cars lack Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. While the device was fairly simple and likely a sales failure for Spotify, it found new life once it went on fire sale and crafty users took to implementing their Car Things into non-car places like home desk setups and on their keyboards.

Spotify’s slight attempt to make it up to Car Thing owners comes after a rough year that saw its music streaming service increase in price in 2023, reports of further increases coming later in 2024, and a round of layoffs that affected 17 percent of its staff. which subsequently cut off some popular music discovery tools. While a refund is better than nothing, Spotify is still making its customers jump through hoops by digging up years-old receipts (and, according to Reddit posts, breaking up the refund across multiple payments). Refunds or not, there will still be many useless hunks of e-waste left behind.

Read More 

Image: The Verge

Google is making way for Manifest V3, the Chrome extension specification that could change the way ad blockers work. The company says it will begin phasing out the old system on the Chrome Beta, Dev, and Canary channels starting on June 3rd.
If you’re on any of these channels, you may see a warning message on your extension management page that says Google will soon end support for extensions running on Manifest V2. The extensions will still work, but Google says it will disable them on your browser in the “coming months” before removing the ability to use them completely. The stable version of Chrome will eventually get these changes, with a full rollout set for the beginning of 2025.

Google’s long-delayed transition to Manifest V3 has faced pushback over concerns it could limit the effectiveness of ad blockers. However, Google has since attempted to address developers’ main concerns by adding support for user scripts and increasing the number of rulesets for the declarativeNetRequest API used by ad blocking extensions. According to Google, Manifest V3 will help improve the security of extensions, as it removes support for remotely hosted code.
Google says 85 percent of “actively maintained” extensions in the Chrome Web Store have already created Manifest V3 versions, including some of the most popular ad blockers, like AdBlock, Adblock Plus, uBlock, and AdGuard.

Image: The Verge

Google is making way for Manifest V3, the Chrome extension specification that could change the way ad blockers work. The company says it will begin phasing out the old system on the Chrome Beta, Dev, and Canary channels starting on June 3rd.

If you’re on any of these channels, you may see a warning message on your extension management page that says Google will soon end support for extensions running on Manifest V2. The extensions will still work, but Google says it will disable them on your browser in the “coming months” before removing the ability to use them completely. The stable version of Chrome will eventually get these changes, with a full rollout set for the beginning of 2025.

Google’s long-delayed transition to Manifest V3 has faced pushback over concerns it could limit the effectiveness of ad blockers. However, Google has since attempted to address developers’ main concerns by adding support for user scripts and increasing the number of rulesets for the declarativeNetRequest API used by ad blocking extensions. According to Google, Manifest V3 will help improve the security of extensions, as it removes support for remotely hosted code.

Google says 85 percent of “actively maintained” extensions in the Chrome Web Store have already created Manifest V3 versions, including some of the most popular ad blockers, like AdBlock, Adblock Plus, uBlock, and AdGuard.

Read More 

Image: Owen Grove / The Verge

Tesla is trying to get its advanced driver assistant “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) software registered with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, according to sources speaking to Reuters. It’s a preliminary step that could lead to employee testing of the system before it eventually rolls out to customers in Tesla’s second-largest global market.
The news comes after CEO Elon Musk’s visit to China last month when government officials lifted restrictions on Tesla vehicle use, and the company secured a deal to collect mapping data. FSD currently costs $99 per month in the US, or $8,000, for a one-time activation, and according to Reuters’ sources, in China, it could have a similar monthly subscription fee. It will also face competition from Chinese automakers like BYD, Nio, and Xpeng, which already have advanced driver-assistance systems available in the country.

The Tesla FSD system currently available in China is a less capable iteration of the software, similar to the company’s Autopilot system that can assist with steering but doesn’t automatically navigate city streets. In the US, a report released by NHTSA in April linked FSD and Autopilot to hundreds of crashes and dozens of deaths.
Tesla has also not yet launched FSD in Europe. As we wrote in 2022, “To obtain that approval, Tesla must convincingly demonstrate that cars with FSD are at least as safe as those without it. At least so far, it hasn’t.”

Image: Owen Grove / The Verge

Tesla is trying to get its advanced driver assistant “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) software registered with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, according to sources speaking to Reuters. It’s a preliminary step that could lead to employee testing of the system before it eventually rolls out to customers in Tesla’s second-largest global market.

The news comes after CEO Elon Musk’s visit to China last month when government officials lifted restrictions on Tesla vehicle use, and the company secured a deal to collect mapping data. FSD currently costs $99 per month in the US, or $8,000, for a one-time activation, and according to Reuters’ sources, in China, it could have a similar monthly subscription fee. It will also face competition from Chinese automakers like BYD, Nio, and Xpeng, which already have advanced driver-assistance systems available in the country.

The Tesla FSD system currently available in China is a less capable iteration of the software, similar to the company’s Autopilot system that can assist with steering but doesn’t automatically navigate city streets. In the US, a report released by NHTSA in April linked FSD and Autopilot to hundreds of crashes and dozens of deaths.

Tesla has also not yet launched FSD in Europe. As we wrote in 2022, “To obtain that approval, Tesla must convincingly demonstrate that cars with FSD are at least as safe as those without it. At least so far, it hasn’t.”

Read More 

Illustration: The Verge

Threads is widely rolling out a desktop site redesign that lets you customize your homepage with a series of feeds, similar to TweetDeck. In a post on Threads, Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced that it’s coming to all users globally starting today.
With the new layout, you can choose which feeds you want to see by selecting the pin icon in the bottom-left corner of the site. From there, you can display your Following feed, For You feed, saved posts, recent notifications, and more. You can scroll horizontally on your screen to see all of the feeds you’ve pinned. Or if you’re more of a minimalist, you can still display one single feed.

Meta started testing the new look earlier this month and says you can turn on autoupdates to make it refresh the feeds in real time. I’m already seeing the redesign live on Threads, and it seems like a much more convenient way to keep track of posts from both my Following and For You feeds instead of switching back and forth between the two.
It’s also nice that you can access the layout for free, unlike the former TweetDeck turned X Pro, which is now tied to a paid subscription.

Illustration: The Verge

Threads is widely rolling out a desktop site redesign that lets you customize your homepage with a series of feeds, similar to TweetDeck. In a post on Threads, Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced that it’s coming to all users globally starting today.

With the new layout, you can choose which feeds you want to see by selecting the pin icon in the bottom-left corner of the site. From there, you can display your Following feed, For You feed, saved posts, recent notifications, and more. You can scroll horizontally on your screen to see all of the feeds you’ve pinned. Or if you’re more of a minimalist, you can still display one single feed.

Meta started testing the new look earlier this month and says you can turn on autoupdates to make it refresh the feeds in real time. I’m already seeing the redesign live on Threads, and it seems like a much more convenient way to keep track of posts from both my Following and For You feeds instead of switching back and forth between the two.

It’s also nice that you can access the layout for free, unlike the former TweetDeck turned X Pro, which is now tied to a paid subscription.

Read More 

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

Elon Musk has agreed to testify in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s investigation into his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. A legal document filed on Thursday shows that Musk waived his right to appeal a court order that requires him to testify.
This means Musk will have to appear at one of the SEC’s offices for an up to five-hour interview. The document says Musk and the SEC have already agreed to a date, but it’s not disclosed “for confidentiality purposes.”
In 2022, the SEC opened an investigation into Musk’s failure to properly disclose his stake in Twitter. But the SEC filed a lawsuit against Musk last October after he refused to testify in the agency’s probe. The SEC claims Musk “abruptly notified the SEC staff that he would not appear” two days before his scheduled deposition and refused to testify at a later date. Earlier this year, the SEC accused Musk of trying to delay the investigation.
Musk has butted heads with the SEC several times in the past, accusing the agency of “unrelenting” harassment and of stifling his free speech.

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

Elon Musk has agreed to testify in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s investigation into his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. A legal document filed on Thursday shows that Musk waived his right to appeal a court order that requires him to testify.

This means Musk will have to appear at one of the SEC’s offices for an up to five-hour interview. The document says Musk and the SEC have already agreed to a date, but it’s not disclosed “for confidentiality purposes.”

In 2022, the SEC opened an investigation into Musk’s failure to properly disclose his stake in Twitter. But the SEC filed a lawsuit against Musk last October after he refused to testify in the agency’s probe. The SEC claims Musk “abruptly notified the SEC staff that he would not appear” two days before his scheduled deposition and refused to testify at a later date. Earlier this year, the SEC accused Musk of trying to delay the investigation.

Musk has butted heads with the SEC several times in the past, accusing the agency of “unrelenting” harassment and of stifling his free speech.

Read More 

Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Smart home company Ecobee launched a new feature for its thermostats today that will automatically adjust temperatures to save energy when there’s a risk of a power outage. And unlike some utilities’ energy saving programs, customers will always be able to opt out with Ecobee.
Sudden spikes in electricity demand, often triggered by people cranking up their air conditioning during a heatwave, can lead to power outages. One of the most effective tools utilities have to prevent outages are programs that ask customers to conserve energy during those demand peaks, say, by turning down their thermostats.
Many homes taking a small action adds up to a big impact on the grid
Ecobee’s new product update offers something similar to residents in places lacking such programs or who might not sign up for them. It’s an update to Ecobee’s Eco Plus Community Energy Savings feature that will respond to emergency event alerts issued by grid operators in North America.
With this update, customers will get a notification on their Ecobee smart thermostat and Ecobee mobile app telling them there’s a possibility of a blackout because of an energy supply shortage in the area. The thermostat will adjust a small amount, between one and four degrees, for no more than four hours. The feature is designed for customers who haven’t enrolled in a similar program with their utility.
The idea is that many homes taking a small action adds up to a big impact on the grid, smoothing out demand peaks and preempting a power outage. It’s a tactic called demand response that’s supposed to help power grids get more resilient to increasingly extreme weather.

Image: Ecobee

Ecobee allows customers to opt out at any time if they don’t want their thermostat to make the adjustment. Customers enrolled in their utility’s energy saving program don’t always have the same option. During severe energy supply shortages, some utilities don’t allow smart thermostats to override their emergency controls. That’s led to backlash in the past during events like a heatwave in 2022 when thousands of residents in Colorado found themselves locked out of their smart thermostats.

“Everyone has a role to play in conserving energy and helping ensure grid stability,” Kari Binley, Ecobee senior manager of energy partnerships, said in a press release. “This update helps communities take control of their energy savings and avoid potentially dangerous outages during high demand periods.”

Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Smart home company Ecobee launched a new feature for its thermostats today that will automatically adjust temperatures to save energy when there’s a risk of a power outage. And unlike some utilities’ energy saving programs, customers will always be able to opt out with Ecobee.

Sudden spikes in electricity demand, often triggered by people cranking up their air conditioning during a heatwave, can lead to power outages. One of the most effective tools utilities have to prevent outages are programs that ask customers to conserve energy during those demand peaks, say, by turning down their thermostats.

Ecobee’s new product update offers something similar to residents in places lacking such programs or who might not sign up for them. It’s an update to Ecobee’s Eco Plus Community Energy Savings feature that will respond to emergency event alerts issued by grid operators in North America.

With this update, customers will get a notification on their Ecobee smart thermostat and Ecobee mobile app telling them there’s a possibility of a blackout because of an energy supply shortage in the area. The thermostat will adjust a small amount, between one and four degrees, for no more than four hours. The feature is designed for customers who haven’t enrolled in a similar program with their utility.

The idea is that many homes taking a small action adds up to a big impact on the grid, smoothing out demand peaks and preempting a power outage. It’s a tactic called demand response that’s supposed to help power grids get more resilient to increasingly extreme weather.

Image: Ecobee

Ecobee allows customers to opt out at any time if they don’t want their thermostat to make the adjustment. Customers enrolled in their utility’s energy saving program don’t always have the same option. During severe energy supply shortages, some utilities don’t allow smart thermostats to override their emergency controls. That’s led to backlash in the past during events like a heatwave in 2022 when thousands of residents in Colorado found themselves locked out of their smart thermostats.

“Everyone has a role to play in conserving energy and helping ensure grid stability,” Kari Binley, Ecobee senior manager of energy partnerships, said in a press release. “This update helps communities take control of their energy savings and avoid potentially dangerous outages during high demand periods.”

Read More 

Image: Microsoft

The last time Microsoft really needed Windows developers was when it asked them to build a new type of application that could work across phones, PCs, tablets, Xbox consoles, and headsets like the HoloLens. It was all part of a larger effort to transform Windows with a new interface for touch-friendly apps, designed to rival the iPad.
It failed miserably. Developers didn’t flock to universal Windows apps, and Microsoft eventually abandoned its touch-friendly UI in favor of a more traditional desktop in Windows 10. The cross-platform dream of the Windows 8 era didn’t last very long.
Now, Microsoft is trying something new, and it needs developers’ help again. It’s adding AI models and tools directly into Windows for this first generation of Copilot Plus PCs — laptops that have powerful neural processing unit (NPU) chips to accelerate AI tasks. I’ve written about how these new laptops will compete with the MacBook Air, transition Windows to Arm-powered chips, and set Windows up for an era of AI. The big selling points are better battery life, better performance, and the promise of AI features inside Windows and the apps you use every day.
But for all of this to work, Microsoft needs developers to adapt their apps again — and get people excited to use Windows.
AI was the talk of Microsoft Build, coming out of every speaker’s mouth and plastered on sign after sign on Microsoft’s campus. There were…

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Image: Microsoft

The last time Microsoft really needed Windows developers was when it asked them to build a new type of application that could work across phones, PCs, tablets, Xbox consoles, and headsets like the HoloLens. It was all part of a larger effort to transform Windows with a new interface for touch-friendly apps, designed to rival the iPad.

It failed miserably. Developers didn’t flock to universal Windows apps, and Microsoft eventually abandoned its touch-friendly UI in favor of a more traditional desktop in Windows 10. The cross-platform dream of the Windows 8 era didn’t last very long.

Now, Microsoft is trying something new, and it needs developers’ help again. It’s adding AI models and tools directly into Windows for this first generation of Copilot Plus PCs — laptops that have powerful neural processing unit (NPU) chips to accelerate AI tasks. I’ve written about how these new laptops will compete with the MacBook Air, transition Windows to Arm-powered chips, and set Windows up for an era of AI. The big selling points are better battery life, better performance, and the promise of AI features inside Windows and the apps you use every day.

But for all of this to work, Microsoft needs developers to adapt their apps again — and get people excited to use Windows.

AI was the talk of Microsoft Build, coming out of every speaker’s mouth and plastered on sign after sign on Microsoft’s campus. There were…

Read More 

A new interactive Google Home widget is coming to Android. | Image: Google

Quick access to smart home devices is coming to Android in the form of a new Google Home Favorites widget. This will let you control devices, actions, and automations directly from the homescreen of your phone. There’s also a new Favorites tile and complication coming to Wear OS for accessing frequently used devices right from your wrist.
The new Favorites widget lets you view and interact with the most-used devices directly on your homescreen, no need to open the Google Home app.
Currently, the easiest way to do this is to tap on the tile shortcut to the Home app, but this opens the full app. An interactive widget should be faster overall for doing something like turning on a light, locking a door, or checking the temperature.

Image: Google
The new Google Home Favorites widget lets you easily interact with smart home devices from the homescreen.

As with most widgets, its size is adjustable, so ideally you could just have a whole page of smart home controls (just me?). The widget is available to those signed up for the Google Home app’s public preview starting today, May 30th.
The new Wear OS Favorites tile and complication brings similar functionality to your wrist. The tile, which you access by swiping left, takes you to quick controls for up to five devices. Tapping on an icon takes you to the device’s controls in the Wear OS Home app, where you can unlock your door, dim the lights, or adjust your thermostat.

Image: Google
The Wear OS Google Home Favorites complication and tile.

The complication can be set to control a specific device right from the watch face, such as a fan or light, and that tapping on it will also take you directly to the control in the Home app.
The Google Home tile and complication for Wear OS is rolling out today, May 30th, on devices running Wear OS 3 or higher.
The widget, tile, and complication all pull from the Favorites section of the Google Home app, so you’ll need to set up the devices you want to access from them in the Home app first.

A new interactive Google Home widget is coming to Android. | Image: Google

Quick access to smart home devices is coming to Android in the form of a new Google Home Favorites widget. This will let you control devices, actions, and automations directly from the homescreen of your phone. There’s also a new Favorites tile and complication coming to Wear OS for accessing frequently used devices right from your wrist.

The new Favorites widget lets you view and interact with the most-used devices directly on your homescreen, no need to open the Google Home app.

Currently, the easiest way to do this is to tap on the tile shortcut to the Home app, but this opens the full app. An interactive widget should be faster overall for doing something like turning on a light, locking a door, or checking the temperature.

Image: Google
The new Google Home Favorites widget lets you easily interact with smart home devices from the homescreen.

As with most widgets, its size is adjustable, so ideally you could just have a whole page of smart home controls (just me?). The widget is available to those signed up for the Google Home app’s public preview starting today, May 30th.

The new Wear OS Favorites tile and complication brings similar functionality to your wrist. The tile, which you access by swiping left, takes you to quick controls for up to five devices. Tapping on an icon takes you to the device’s controls in the Wear OS Home app, where you can unlock your door, dim the lights, or adjust your thermostat.

Image: Google
The Wear OS Google Home Favorites complication and tile.

The complication can be set to control a specific device right from the watch face, such as a fan or light, and that tapping on it will also take you directly to the control in the Home app.

The Google Home tile and complication for Wear OS is rolling out today, May 30th, on devices running Wear OS 3 or higher.

The widget, tile, and complication all pull from the Favorites section of the Google Home app, so you’ll need to set up the devices you want to access from them in the Home app first.

Read More 

Google’s latest grab bag of Android updates is rolling out throughout May and June. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google is releasing seven new updates and features to make Android devices and services more useful. The most notable update is to Google Messages, which now lets users edit messages up to 15 minutes after they’ve been sent.
This is achieved by tapping and holding on sent RCS messages and then selecting the pencil icon that appears at the top of the screen. The feature has been expected since last year, when references to editing first appeared inside the Messages app code. The Google Messages update starts rolling out today for all phones running Android 8 or later. Similar editing features have already been added to rival messaging services like WhatsApp and iMessage.

Image: Google
Just tap and hold your sent message to correct typos or other required edits.

Image: Google
You can soon switch between connected devices while in the middle of a Google Meet call.

Google also announced improvements to instant hotspot, which will soon allow users to connect an Android tablet or Chromebook to their phone’s hotspot with a single tap — no password required. The update to instant hotspot also lets users switch between connected phones, tablets, or web browsers during Google Meet calls by tapping the Cast icon. These features all start rolling out to Android phones, foldables, and tablets running Android 11 or later on June 10th.
The Google Home Favorites widget, which allows users to quickly view and control their most-used smart home devices, is now available in public preview and can be added to the homescreen on Android phones. Starting today, smartwatches running Wear OS 3 or later can also run the Google Home Favorites tile, alongside a new PayPal option for Google Wallet in the US and Germany.

Image: Google
Updates to Wear OS make it easier to manage smart home devices when you’re away from your phone.

Emoji Kitchen is also getting some new sticker combinations on June 10th for users to share via Gboard. And lastly, digital car key support is being extended to cover additional vehicles, including select Mini, Mercedes-Benz, and Polestar models. The digital key update is available for Android 12 or later. Support for Mini vehicles, which is already available in the EU, started rolling out in the US on May 13th. Support for Mercedes-Benz will be available on June 10th, while Polestar support will roll out between June 17th and 21st.

Google’s latest grab bag of Android updates is rolling out throughout May and June. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google is releasing seven new updates and features to make Android devices and services more useful. The most notable update is to Google Messages, which now lets users edit messages up to 15 minutes after they’ve been sent.

This is achieved by tapping and holding on sent RCS messages and then selecting the pencil icon that appears at the top of the screen. The feature has been expected since last year, when references to editing first appeared inside the Messages app code. The Google Messages update starts rolling out today for all phones running Android 8 or later. Similar editing features have already been added to rival messaging services like WhatsApp and iMessage.

Google also announced improvements to instant hotspot, which will soon allow users to connect an Android tablet or Chromebook to their phone’s hotspot with a single tap — no password required. The update to instant hotspot also lets users switch between connected phones, tablets, or web browsers during Google Meet calls by tapping the Cast icon. These features all start rolling out to Android phones, foldables, and tablets running Android 11 or later on June 10th.

The Google Home Favorites widget, which allows users to quickly view and control their most-used smart home devices, is now available in public preview and can be added to the homescreen on Android phones. Starting today, smartwatches running Wear OS 3 or later can also run the Google Home Favorites tile, alongside a new PayPal option for Google Wallet in the US and Germany.

Image: Google
Updates to Wear OS make it easier to manage smart home devices when you’re away from your phone.

Emoji Kitchen is also getting some new sticker combinations on June 10th for users to share via Gboard. And lastly, digital car key support is being extended to cover additional vehicles, including select Mini, Mercedes-Benz, and Polestar models. The digital key update is available for Android 12 or later. Support for Mini vehicles, which is already available in the EU, started rolling out in the US on May 13th. Support for Mercedes-Benz will be available on June 10th, while Polestar support will roll out between June 17th and 21st.

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