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Andrew Liszewski
DJI’s first robot vacuum is being announced on August 6th.

After months of questionable leaks that haven’t revealed many details, DJI has shared a teaser video and image of its first robot vacuum being announced next week. The DJI Romo features a traditional circular robovac design with a pair of extended brushes and what appears to be a sensor array on the front.

It will also utilize a dock, but despite what the teaser image shows, the transparent version might just be DJI showing off the dock’s internals and functionality.

Two versions of the DJI Romo robot vacuum parked in its dock.
Will the DJI Romo robovac actually be available in a white or transparent version? We’ll find out soon, and whether the company plans to release it in the US.
Image: DJI
The chaos and confusion of itch.io and Steam’s abrupt adult game ban

Thousands of games and media have been delisted from two major platforms. Here’s how that happened.

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Elizabeth Lopatto
An in-depth profile of Luke Farritor, 23-year-old IT Renfield.

“Luke’s résumé didn’t pass muster,” says one former government official, but obviously that doesn’t matter to DOGE. Farritor is “designated a GS-15, the highest salary rank for civilians, earning $167,603,” Bloomberg reports. He’s chauffeured around in a black SUV. And he’s betting that even if DOGE is a failure, he’s written his ticket for life: “To gamble like that shows you understand the theater of Silicon Valley.”

DOGE-Pilled

[bloomberg.com]

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Andrew Liszewski
You can now remap your controls when playing SNES games on the Switch.

Nintendo previously let you remap your controller buttons while playing classic N64 and GameCube games through the Switch Online service, but that functionality has now been expanded to Super Nintendo games, too, as spotted by Nintendo Life.

Although the new View/Change Controls option in the SNES app was briefly seen in the Nintendo of America Mario Paint video released yesterday, the Japanese version goes into more detail about how it works.

A screenshot of a Nintendo Japan video demonstrating how to remap controls on a Super Nintendo gamepad.
Nintendo has added controller remapping for Super Nintendo games on the Switch and Switch 2.
Screenshot: Nintendo
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External Link
Justine Calma
Suddenly, the EPA no longer thinks greenhouse gas emissions “endanger” public health.

The Trump administration proposed tossing out the landmark 2009 “endangerment finding” that allows the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas pollution under the Clean Air Act.

Greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide and methane cause climate change, of course. Climate change is projected to lead to roughly 250,000 additional deaths each year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat illness between 2030 and 2050, according to the World Health Organization.

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Sean Hollister
Corsair’s tiny PC takes on Framework Desktop with the same 128GB Strix Halo for LLMs (and gaming).

This box isn’t anywhere near as customizably cool as the Framework Desktop, and it’s not even that much cheaper! (It’s the same $1,599 for 64GB or $1,999 for an LLM-friendly 128GB, save that Corsair throws in a 1TB SSD and Windows.)

But I guess the new Corsair AI Workstation 300 does come prebuilt, and you aren’t limited to just two front ports: you get two USB-A, one C, full-size SD and audio right out of the box.

A small tower PC in black with interlocking Ys in an armor like mesh as its embossed pattern on the front of the case
Image: Corsair
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Andrew Webster
It’s getting chilly on Prehistoric Planet.

There have already been two great seasons of Apple’s prehistoric nature documentary series, and the next will shift the focus to the Ice Age, exploring the period across five episodes. Tom Hiddleston will be swapping in for Sir David Attenborough as the narrator when the show premieres on November 26th.

A still photo from the TV series Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age.
A still photo from the TV series Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age.
A still photo from the TV series Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age.
A still photo from the TV series Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age.
A still photo from the TV series Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age.
1/5Image: Apple
The dangerously blurry line between wellness and medical tech

Whoop’s FDA notice is a reminder that it’s harder to tell what’s a medical feature and what’s “just for fun.”

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Youtube
Charles Pulliam-Moore
In A24’s Eternity, the afterlife is whatever you want it to be.

Larry (Miles Teller) needs a few beats to figure out that he’s dead in the new trailer for director David Freyne’s metaphysical romcom Eternity. But once he does, Larry realizes that he has to figure out a way to convince his recently-deceased wife Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) to spend the afterlife with him rather than her first husband Luke (Callum Turner). No firm release date just yet, but the film’s out this November.

What’s on your desk, Cameron Faulkner?What’s on your desk, Cameron Faulkner?
Tech
Tech
Cameron Faulkner and Barbara KrasnoffCommentsComment Icon Bubble
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Adi Robertson
“We have limited ability to ‘push back.’”

The controversy over Itch.io’s NSFW game delisting isn’t cooling down, but the platform has tried to address some of the most common questions in a new FAQ, including its next steps:

“We are actively reaching out to other payment processors that are more willing to work with this kind of content. We have suspended the ability to pay with Stripe for 18+ content for the foreseeable future. Our immediate focus has been on content classification reviews and implementing stricter age-gating on the site.”

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Youtube
Tom Warren
Valorant moves to Unreal Engine 5 today.

And Riot Games is hoping you won’t even notice, apart from the big download. Today’s update moves Valorant from Unreal Engine 4.27 to Unreal Engine 5.3, and there might even be some small performance improvements on some systems. While other PC games using Unreal 5 have run into stutter issues, Riot says its switch shouldn’t even be noticeable for most players.

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Dominic Preston
Bragi is making an OpenAI-powered chat app for headphones.

ChatAI will help other headphone brands quickly add wake words or button shortcuts to talk to an OpenAI-powered assistant.

Bragi was once one of the most exciting earbud manufacturers itself, but quit making hardware in 2019 with grand ambitions to sell audio AI instead.

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Emma Roth
Roku is adding new ways to find things to watch.

The streaming platform began testing a new homepage in June, and now it’s starting to roll out a new “surf mode” feature that lets you scroll through a TikTok-like feed of show and movie clips from The Roku Channel. It will also introduce two new rows for the top 10 shows and movies on Roku, as well as add an “In Theaters Now” row where you can explore movie trailers.

Trump’s AI plan is a massive handout to gas and chemical companies

The Trump administration wants to build data center projects on Superfund sites, and with as little oversight as possible.

Justine CalmaCommentsComment Icon Bubble
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Andrew Liszewski
Govee’s new outdoor smart light projects different colors in four directions at once.

The company says its Outdoor UpDown Wall Light is the “industry’s first” with “independently adjustable colors on all four sides.” Through the Govee app users can choose from over 16 million shades and while the up and down beams cast a brighter glow than the sides, overall the light can illuminate over 120 square feet of wall space.

It’s available starting today through Govee’s website and Amazon for $129.99 individually, or $229.99 for a pair.

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Dominic Preston
Who pays for AI’s power?

Big Tech has turned to everything from nuclear reactors to coal mines to get enough power to run new data centers demanded by the pivot to AI, but utility companies want to make sure they’re not stuck footing the bill.

They’re increasingly demanding that tech giants sign longer electricity contracts and commit to paying for surplus power regardless of whether they use it, to avoid the extra infrastructure costs ending up on consumers’ energy bills.

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The Verge
Tom Warren
Windows 10 is now 10 years old.

Microsoft first released Windows 10 exactly 10 years ago today. It introduced the idea of “Windows as a service,” a model that delivers regular updates to Windows instead of a major release every few years. While one Microsoft employee called Windows 1o “the last version of Windows,” Microsoft went on to release Windows 11 and keep that Windows as a service model alive today. Windows 10 is a hugely popular OS 10 years on, and Microsoft is still trying to get people to move to Windows 11 ahead of Windows 10’s end of support in October.

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Thomas Ricker
India overtakes China in smartphone exports to the US.

This might be a one-off after Apple reportedly shipped 600 tons of iPhones from India in April to avoid tariff threats, but a new report from Canalys tracks with Apple’s intention to move the totality of its US iPhone production to the country by the end of 2026. China doesn’t like it and Trump’s gonna be real pretend mad.

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Twitter
Richard Lawler
AI responses may include mistakes.

Today’s example is a Men’s Health article on Luka Doncic and his offseason workout routine. Pretty standard stuff, until the claim about a 42-inch vertical leap at the NBA Combine -- big if true, but it’s not, and he didn’t participate.

Nick Angstadt pointed out the error and its likely source, Google’s AI Overview. It carries the above warning, but as we know, many people never click through to the source anyway. The article has since been corrected, but now the AI summary incorrectly cites the original text.

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External Link
Jay Peters
Google is rolling out AI Mode for Search in the UK.

You’ll start to see it as a tab in Search or in Google’s iOS and Android apps. Google initially launched the AI-powered search experience in May in the US.

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External Link
Jay Peters
Waymo’s autonomous ride-hailing service will be available in Dallas in 2026.

In Dallas, Waymo’s fleet will be managed through “a new strategic, multi-year partnership with Avis Budget Group,” Waymo says.

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External Link
Elizabeth Lopatto
A crypto tycoon and a VC funded an experiment to literally block sunlight in California.

A University of Washington experiment with “a machine to create clouds” was shut down by the city of Alameda — because the scientists didn’t bother to tell the locals what they were up to, Politico writes. They were 20 minutes into the test when city officials ended the experiment.

Donors to the Marine Cloud Brightening Program include “cryptocurrency billionaire Chris Larsen, the philanthropist Rachel Pritzker and Chris Sacca, a venture capitalist.” Can’t wait to find out what new conspiracy theories this spawns!