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The best robot vacuum and mop to buy right now

Robot vacuums that can both mop and sweep your floors have improved significantly in recent years. While they are still not as effective as good ol’ manual labor, if you run them regularly, they will help keep your floors cleaner with much less effort on your part. The difference is that newer “combo” robot vacuum and mop models are designed to actually scrub your floors. The first robot vacuums that could also “mop” simply slapped a thin, flat microfiber pad on the bot that kind of Swiffer-ed

The best robot vacuums

Robot vacuums are impressive devices that will clean your floors well without complaining (much). As prices have dropped, these busy little bots have become less of a luxury and more of a necessity. They can reach places most standup vacs never see (under beds and sofas) and, thanks to better batteries and robot brains, they rarely get tired of cleaning. I’ve been testing robot vacuums for seven years and have run over 60 robot vacuums all over my house. These are my top picks if you’re looking

Anne Wojcicki has a new offer to take 23andMe private, this time for $74.7 million

23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki and New Mountain Capital have submitted a proposal to take the embattled genetic testing company private, according to a Friday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Wojcicki and New Mountain have offered to acquire all of 23andMe's outstanding shares in cash for $2.53 per share, or an equity value of approximately $74.7 million. The company's stock closed at $2.42 on Friday with a market cap of about $65 million. The offer comes after a turbulent y

The Avatar Cycle, Explained

The Avatar franchise’s titular hero is defined by more than just their ability to wield the abilities of all four elements; beyond their martial and spiritual prowess is a transcendental link to previous inheritors of the mantle stretching across thousands of years of history. But as we prepare for the news of a new Avatar show—and with it, the next incarnation of the Avatar—we’ve learned that they’re going to be facing a very different world and reputation, as well as a ramification that has ch

As the Kernel Turns: Rust in Linux saga reaches the “Linus in all-caps” phase

Rust, a modern and notably more memory-safe language than C, once seemed like it was on a steady, calm, and gradual approach into the Linux kernel. In 2021, Linux kernel leaders, like founder and leader Linus Torvalds himself, were impressed with the language but had a "wait and see" approach. Rust for Linux gained supporters and momentum, and in October 2022, Torvalds approved a pull request adding support for Rust code in the kernel. By late 2024, however, Rust enthusiasts were frustrated wi

DOGE’s USDS Purge Included the Guy Who Keeps Veterans’ Data Safe Online

When the so-called Department of Government Efficiency recently fired dozens of people from the US Digital Service—the agency DOGE subsumed last month—it may not have realized the extent of the collateral damage. The USDS doesn't operate in a vacuum; part of its longtime mandate is to consult with federal agencies to help improve their digital platforms and websites. So when DOGE terminated Jonathan Kamens in its agency purge, it may not have fully grasped that it was firing the security lead f

Steam Deck, ROG Ally, and more: all the news about the handheld PC gaming revolution

In July 2021, Valve revealed the Steam Deck, a Switch-like handheld device packed with features including a huge variety of control options, a 7-inch touchscreen, the ability to connect to external displays, and a quick suspend / resume feature. The device began shipping in February 2022, starting at $399. Now Valve’s new revision of the Steam Deck adds an OLED screen along with tons of other improvements that Sean Hollister says make it “everything the original should have been.”

Game investments and M&A totaled $17.5B across 985 deals in 2024 | DDM

As the games industry moves on from “survive til 25,” 2024 games investment and M&A data revealed recovery and improvement, according to market analyst firm Digital Development Management (DDM). In order to properly compare 2024 to 2023, it’s important to remember that in Q4 2023 Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, the largest gaming M&A in history by over 5.4 times its nearest counterpart of Take-Two Interactive’s $12.7 billion acquisition of Zynga. Removing Microsoft’s

Here’s an early look at the Play Store’s AI avatar generator (APK teardown)

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR Google is working on an AI-powered avatar generator for Play Games profiles. We’ve enabled it before the official rollout to give you an early look. Google is developing an AI-powered avatar generator for the Play Store that will allow you to create a custom avatar for your Play Games profile. We first spotted evidence of this upcoming feature earlier this week, and we’ve now managed to get an early look at how it may work upon release. Authority Ins

ChatGPT's AI agent Operator is now available for most Pro users

It's now out for most regions where ChatGPT is also available, though the EU isn't included. Operator is now out in Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the UK and most places where ChatGPT is also available, OpenAI has announced. The company launched Operator in the US back in January, introducing it as an "agent that can go to the web to perform tasks" for the user. Operator can handle various browser-based tasks for users, such as filling out forms, making restaur

I finally found a smartwatch that captures the analog aesthetic, and it's feature-rich

ZDNET's key takeaways The Withings Scanwatch Nova is available for pre-order now, starting at $599. It's an elegant smartwatch with a one-month battery, water resistance up to 10ATM, and various health-tracking metrics. A $10/month subscription is required for some advanced metrics, and the watch is only available in one 42mm diameter. $616.94 at Amazon Healthy heart monitoring starts with gathering your metrics, but making sense out of all the numbers is a whole different challenge. For the

Running Pong in 240 browser tabs

Running Pong in 240 Browser Tabs Finally a use for my unclosed tabs Feb 20, 2025 What do you do with your unclosed browser tabs? I find that they take up a lot of screen space. So this week I figured out how to run pong inside mine. Loading... putting that space to good use That’s 240 browser tabs in a tight 8x30 grid. And they’re running pong! The ball and paddles are able to cleanly move between the canvas in the foregrounded window and all of the tabs above. You can see the (awful) code h

Avatar: Seven Havens‘ Apocalyptic Premise Has Korra Fans Worried Their Hero Is Going to Get Slandered

Yesterday, Nickelodeon and Avatar Studios finally unveiled some concrete details about Avatar: Seven Havens, the new animated spin-off of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. While the news came with comforting details like a lengthy episode count and the involvement of series co-creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, the plot details of the new show have Korra fans bracing for more slander of their favorite hero. Accompanying Seven Havens‘ announcement was some flavor t

Marvel Rivals Season 1.5 Is Live: The Thing and Human Torch Join the Battle

Marvel Rivals, the new hero shooter based on Marvel comics characters, is about halfway through its first full season. The free-to-play game launched season 0 on Dec. 6 and quickly reached 20 million players before starting its first full season in early January. The midseason update brings two new heroes, one new map and (thank Odin) does feature a rank reset as originally announced. Read more: Marvel Rivals: How to Choose Which Heroes and Roles to Play New Marvel Rivals heroes and maps Sea

16 Best Crossplay Games for Consoles and PC (2025): Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, Mobile

Crossplay games are ones you can play online with people on consoles or platforms different than yours. They're increasingly common, but the landscape remains fractured, and the options can be confusing. Some games are available in only a couple of places, and it's often unclear why some platforms are supported for crossplay and others aren't. Here, we've rounded up the best games that work on the most gaming destinations possible, so you can play with friends and family around the world. Looki

OpenAI rolls out its AI agent, Operator, in several countries

OpenAI said on Friday that it is rolling out Operator — its AI agent that can perform tasks on behalf of users — for ChatGPT Pro subscribers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the U.K., and more countries. OpenAI said Operator will be available in most places where ChatGPT is available, apart from the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein, and Iceland. Operator, which launched in January in the U.S., is one of several “AI agent” tools on the market that can be

Marvel Rivals disrupted the Twitch scene from launch | StreamElements

StreamElements this week put out its latest State of the Stream report for January 2025. In most respects, the report shows typical behavior for Twitch’s audience — viewership numbers take a dive in December and then rebound after the new year, which happened in this case. However, not only do we have a new top streamer for the month, but the most-viewed games list has been shaken up by the arrival of Netease’s Marvel Rivals. According to StreamElement’s report, which was done in partnership wi

There’s a new Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon coming to Nickelodeon

It’s been ten long years since Avatar: The Legend of Korra aired its final episode and over 15 years since Avatar: The Last Airbender bowed out. Now, finally, Nickelodeon has greenlit a sequel series and it sounds pretty awesome. Deadline reports that Avatar: Seven Havens will be a 2D animated 26-episode followup that chronicles the rise of the next Avatar after Korra. Franchise creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko are developing the series, so we know it's in good hands. The plot sou

Launch HN: Confident AI (YC W25) – Open-source evaluation framework for LLM apps

Hi HN - we're Jeffrey and Kritin, and we're building Confident AI ( https://confident-ai.com ). This is the cloud platform for DeepEval ( https://github.com/confident-ai/deepeval ), our open-source package that helps engineers evaluate and unit-test LLM applications. Think Pytest for LLMs. We spent the past year building DeepEval with the goal of providing the best LLM evaluation developer experience, growing it to run over 600K evaluations daily in CI/CD pipelines of enterprises like BCG, Astr

Before the Cult TV Show, the Buffy Movie Proved How Fun Slaying Monsters Can Be

Buffy the Vampire Slayer may soon make a TV comeback with Sarah Michelle Gellar—and the cult-classic series will always be the most beloved version of Buffy’s story. But in 1992, five years prior to fans becoming obsessed with Sunnydale and the Scoobies, a different version of Buffy’s story hit the big screen. The same broad strokes are there; the script is by (now-disgraced) Buffy series creator Joss Whedon, and it follows a chipper blonde named Buffy saving the world from monsters. But it’s go

USDA Layoffs Derail Projects Benefiting American Farmers

The widespread layoff of Department of Agriculture scientists has thrown vital research into disarray, according to former and current employees of the agency. Scientists hit by the layoffs were working on projects to improve crops, defend against pests and disease, and understand the climate impact of farming practices. The layoffs also threaten to undermine billions of taxpayer dollars paid to farmers to support conservation practices, experts warn. The USDA layoffs are part of the Trump admi

Nickelodeon’s next Avatar animated series is finally coming together

is a reporter focusing on film, TV, and pop culture. Before The Verge, he wrote about comic books, labor, race, and more at io9 and Gizmodo for almost five years. Rumours about the next mainline Avatar series have been circulating ever since Nickelodeon announced that Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko were returning to lead Avatar Studios. But now, we finally know a bit more about where the franchise is heading after The Legend of Korra. Today, Nickelodeon announced that the Avatar saga (w

Vanguard Exiles launches on March 11 as next game from Magic creator Richard Garfield

Vanguard Exiles, the next game by Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield, will launch into early access on Steam on March 11. The digital board game comes from Australian game developer The Tea Division, and it’s designed in association with Garfield. The title is an innovative auto battler with a redefined take on the genre. The devs say to prepare yourself for a competitive strategy gameplay experience unlike any other, offering new scenarios in each round ensuring no two turns are eve

Can you really get Windows and Office for free? These hackers say yes

rob dobi/Getty Images A group of developers who call themselves Massgrave have successfully hacked Microsoft's activation tools for Windows and Office. The collective has uploaded a set of PowerShell scripts to their repository on GitHub, where anyone can download and use the tools to activate any edition of Windows or any perpetual-license Office edition without paying Microsoft's licensing fees. The most recent update includes a module that the group claims will allow users to install Window

Obscura VPN – Privacy that's more than a promise

Unlike VPNs with a “no-logs” policy, Obscura is provably private by design. Even “no-logs” VPNs see both your identity and your internet activity, meaning you have to blindly trust their pinky-promise for privacy. This is exactly why some privacy-conscious folks will tell you not to use a VPN at all. Obscura is different – we never see your decrypted internet packets. It’s simply impossible for us to log your internet activity, even if we were compelled to, or if our servers were compromised.

Play Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader Now and More Games Soon on Xbox Game Pass

Xbox Game Pass subscribers can now expand the Imperium of Mankind in the grimdark universe of Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. And if you've got the need for speed, you can race to the checkered flag in the Formula One Championship in F1 24. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate -- a CNET Editors' Choice award pick -- offers hundreds of games you can play on your Xbox Series X, Series S, Xbox One, PC and mobile device for $20 a month. A subscription provides access to a large library of games, with new titles