Catherine Herridge Reveals Story About CBS and Elon Musk That Explains Why Legacy Media Is Imploding

New Blood: Veteran Congressional Democrat Abandons Key Leadership Role

A perfect example of the good and bad of Twos AI: paper towel prices are helpful, eBay listings, less helpful. | Image: Twos A lot of AI tools promise something like magic. Just write down all the stuff you need to do, or better yet, just let the tool record every second of your life, and presto manifesto, it’ll do… something. Buy plane tickets, maybe, or magically reorder your calendar to maximize your flow state. The idea is huge and enticing, that you could just live your life and your AI assistant will make everything happen on your behalf. But hardly any of it works. The developers of the app Twos are taking a much more cautious and, as a result, much more actually useful approach. Twos is an app for taking notes, managing to-dos, and generally making lists of any and every kind — Parker Klein, the app’s creator, just calls it “a place to write things down.” Klein has been working on the app for nearly a decade, first as a tool just for himself and most recently as a true startup. I’ve been using Twos off and on for a couple of years, and there’s a lot to like about the app. The Twos AI approach, which Klein and cofounder Joe Steilberg call “smart suggestions,” is to use AI to help you simply take the first step in getting something done. If you write down the name of a movie, Twos might offer you a link to a JustWatch search or the IMDb page for that movie. If you write a person’s name and phone number, it can add them to your contacts with one tap. If you’re making a grocery list, it’ll send you to Amazon or Walmart or Instacart to buy it. The logic behind all these suggestions is really simple: Twos looks for certain words and phrases to determine what you’re trying to do and which integration makes the most sense. (You can pick and choose, too — I never use Uber Eats, for instance, so I turned that off entirely.) All the smart suggestions really do is take the first step. They’re definitely not perfect — when I type “bake blueberry muffins,” it offers me an Allrecipes link, which is helpful and relevant, and a Google Maps search for “blueberry muffins around me,” which is not. But even in the feature’s early days, I’ve found it way more useful than almost every other, vastly more ambitious productivity tool. Image: Twos Like any to-do list app worth its valuation, Twos now has an AI chatbot. Twos also has a built-in chatbot, which you can use to ask questions about your notes. If you use your note-taking app like a journal, this can be really cool — “what was the name of that Thai food place we went to a few weeks ago?” is a surprisingly common question in my life. Lots of apps have something like this, and they all suffer from the same problem: if you don’t put everything in the app, the search isn’t that useful. But whether it’s Notion or Dropbox or Twos, the AI integrations reward the heaviest users. AI turns Twos into not just my to-do list but the jumping-off point for all my tasks. Since the app works across platforms — it’s fundamentally a web app, but there are versions for Android and iOS, Windows and Mac, and more — it’s easy to just dump information into. Then, when it’s time to leave for the restaurant I wrote down and promptly forgot the name of, I open Twos, tap the sparkles that appear next to any item with a smart suggestion, and it opens Google Maps and directs me there. You can store and organize things inside of Twos, but I find myself using it transiently, just for the small things in day-to-day life. I need to make bread: click the sparkles, bread recipes appear. Remember to buy those Sesame Street bath toys for the kid: click the sparkles, Amazon search done. Ollie’s birthday is December 7th: click the sparkles, in my contacts. For now, the Twos smart suggestions are only available in beta testing, and there’s a waitlist for new users. (Though Klein did tell me that if you sign up and use the code “Verge,” you’ll be able to skip the line.) Klein and Steilberg are working on more integrations and more ways to do even more with just a few words of your writing. They’re obviously enticed by how far this might go. Why not automatically buy the toys or start the grocery delivery and take a cut for themselves? It’s an age-old idea, that one. Any.do tried it years ago; there was even a frenzy of apps like Magic that would do it all via text message. Even the Alexa business model used to depend on you being willing to just shout “buy toilet paper” at your speaker and trust it to do the rest. There’s just one problem with the idea: it doesn’t work. There are too many logistical questions, too many ways to screw it up, and too many consequences for getting it wrong that it’s not going to work anytime soon. If ever. In the meantime, the best AI tools work the way Twos does: by just helping you get started. Some apps help you search for information even when you don’t know exactly how to ask for it; others write the first draft of code or an email to get you started. AI as a complete solution to just about anything still feels like fiction. AI as a first step? Pretty useful.

Ikea has updated its smart home app to bring dynamic lighting to its smart lights. | Image: Ikea Ikea updated its Home smart mobile app this week with a new dynamic lighting feature that will automatically adjust the color temperature and brightness of its smart lights throughout the day. It’s similar to the natural light scene that Philips Hue introduced in late 2022, and is designed to provide warmer illumination in the mornings and evenings, with cooler hues in the day time. The new feature is mentioned in the version history notes of a recent update to the iOS version of the Ikea Home smart app, and is described as a way to “keep your home in balance” that’s “great for mind, body, and soul.” The Android version of Ikea’s app was updated on the same day, according to Notebookcheck, but there’s no mention of the new adaptive lighting feature there, only bug fixes and minor improvements. Given the feature is specifically tied to Ikea’s Home smart app, it’s only compatible with lighting products that connect to Ikea’s Matter-ready Dirigera smart home hub that launched in the latter half of 2022. That includes products like its Sonos-compatible Symfonisk speaker lamp. However, it’s not known if the feature will work with third-party smart lights through Matter, and The Verge has reached out to Ikea to confirm if it’s compatible with the Adaptive Lighting feature in Apple’s Home app.

The Meross Matter Smart Thermostat is the company’s first thermostat compatible with North American heating and cooling systems. | Image: Meross Smart home company Meross announced its first Matter-certified smart thermostat and its first to work with North American whole-home heating and cooling systems. The Meross Matter Smart Thermostat costs $99.99, works over Wi-Fi, and features a white glass panel with a touch screen, smart scheduling, and can track system usage through the Meross app. The thermostat requires a C-Wire, and Meross says it’s compatible with 95 percent of heating and cooling systems. It also appears it will work with Meross’ smart temperature and humidity sensors, which are Matter-compatible. They cost $30 each, although you’ll need a Meross hub to use them. Matter compatibility means the thermostat can integrate with platforms such as Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings locally over your Wi-Fi network without requiring a cloud connection. You should also be able to set up and use the thermostat directly on those platforms without requiring the Meross app. Image: Meross The new smart thermostat from Meross can track the heating and cooling usage of your HVAC system. Surprisingly, despite the popularity of smart thermostats — which take a lot of the pain out of programming your heating and cooling system and can use their smarts to help save you energy — there are only two Matter-compatible smart thermostats for US HVAC systems. Those are the Nest Thermostat ($129.99) and the new Nest Learning Thermostat (4th Gen) ($279.99) — both from Google. Other popular brands in the space, such as Ecobee, Amazon, and Honeywell Home, have not added Matter support to their thermostats. This means that if you're interested in using a Matter device to control your HVAC, Meross’ new thermostat is now your least expensive option. While it doesn’t come with the Nest Thermostat’s smarts that will automatically adjust your schedule, it is the only thermostat with Matter-compatible room sensors. The Nest Learning Thermostat has room sensors, but they're not compatible with Matter. One reason for the lack of support for more thermostats in Matter could be the limited controls Matter allows for. Currently, you can only adjust the temperature and change the mode on compatible platforms. However, the most recent spec release for Matter (1.4) added support for scheduling and preset modes such as home / away and vacation settings. This addition means that once a platform supports 1.4, it will be easier to set up and use a Matter smart thermostat directly in your smart home platform of choice and not need to use the manufacturer’s app. The Meross Matter Smart Thermostat costs $99.99 and is available now, with a launch price of $69.99 from the Meross store.

Image: The Verge AI investment is massive even though AI profits are not. How are investors justifying this pricey gamble on the future? Read the full story at The Verge.

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images Waymo is making the moves on Magic City. Alphabet’s robotaxi service said it would launch in Miami in 2026. The company has been testing its autonomous vehicles in the Florida city on-and-off since 2019, and more recently has begun to lay the groundwork in earnest. Waymo plans to start “reacquainting” its autonomous Jaguar I-Pace vehicles to Miami’s streets in 2025. And in 2026, it expects to start making its vehicles available to riders through its Waymo One ridehail app. Waymo plans to start “reacquainting” its autonomous Jaguar I-Pace vehicles to Miami’s streets in 2025 The vehicles will be maintained by a company called Moove, which provides fleet services, as well as a range of financial products for mobility companies. The African company (it has several offices in Nigeria) is backed by Uber and was recently valued at $750 million. Moove will start out by taking over Waymo’s fleet management operations in Phoenix. That includes cleaning the vehicles, charging them, and making sure that the sensors are calibrated and unobstructed. Waymo’s robotaxi business is slowly growing. It currently operates fleets of driverless cars in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, and Phoenix. It also plans to launch a robotaxi service in Atlanta in an exclusive partnership with Uber. Waymo said recently it crossed the threshold of providing 150,000 paid trips per week. Miami once played host to Ford-backed ArgoAI’s autonomous vehicle testing, but the company shut down when Ford pulled its funding.

Pac-Man. | Image: Amazon Ever since it was announced, there has been some confusion over just what Secret Level actually is. The video game-themed anthology streaming on Prime Video — helmed by Love, Death & Robots creator Tim Miller — is a collection of animated shorts, each based on a different gaming property. So there’s a Mega Man episode that explores the character’s origin and a Spelunky episode that attempts to create a metanarrative around the concept of a roguelike. It’s an interesting idea let down by a lack of interesting ideas. The 15 shorts are almost universally dull and manage to neither make their source material seem compelling nor provide new insights for existing fans. The real confusion is who this is actually for. The main problem is how homogenous Secret Level is. Working directly with game publishers, the show pulls from an oddball but also impressively global list, with titles like Chinese megahit Honor of Kings and Korean shooter Crossfire. But despite featuring a large variety of video games, its episodes all feel very samey. It’s kind of the opposite of Love, Death & Robots, which featured a number of different styles and tones as it explored horror and sci-fi. That’s how we... Read the full story at The Verge.

China has decided to impose sanctions on 13 U.S. military firms from Thursday, in response to the sale of U.S. arms to Taiwan, the foreign ministry said after the United States arranged for Taiwan's president to transit through its territory.

Amnesty International accused the state of Israel of committing genocide against terrorists in the Gaza war in a report published Thursday, an allegation Israel angrily denied.