In March, Apple delayed its upgraded Siri, saying that “it’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver” the promised features. At WWDC this week, Apple’s SVP of software Craig Federighi and SVP of worldwide marketing Greg Joswiak shared more details about the decision to delay in an interview with The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern.
As part of its initial Apple Intelligence announcements at WWDC 2024, Apple said that the improved Siri would have awareness of your personal context and the ability to take actions for you in apps. While Apple was showing real software at that show, Siri “didn’t converge in the way, quality-wise, that we needed it to,” Federighi said. Apple wanted it to be “really, really reliable. And we weren’t able to achieve the reliability in the time we thought.”
“Look, we don’t want to disappoint customers,” Joswiak said. “We never do. But it would’ve been more disappointing to ship something that didn’t hit our quality standard, that had an error rate that we felt was unacceptable. So we made what we thought was the best decision. I’d make it again.”
Stern asked why Apple, with all of its resources, couldn’t make it work. “When it comes to automating capabilities on devices in a reliable way, no one’s doing it really well right now,” Federighi said. “We wanted to be the first. We wanted to do it best.” While the company had “very promising early results and working initial versions,” the team came to feel that “this just doesn’t work reliably enough to be an Apple product,” he said.
At WWDC, Federighi also spoke to YouTuber iJustine, and both Federighi and Joswiak were interviewed by Tom’s Guide’s Mark Spoonauer and TechRadar’s Lance Ulanoff. In Apple’s March statement, it said that anticipated rolling out the Siri upgrades “in the coming year,” which, to Spoonauer, Joswiak clarified to mean 2026.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT service was down all day for many users after the platform started experiencing performance issues on Tuesday morning. The chatbot responded with a “Hmm…something seems to have gone wrong” error message to my colleague after failing to load, and users across X and Reddit are reporting platform outages.
Downdetector showed that issues started at around 3AM ET, with multiple regions impacted globally. OpenAI’s own status page said that some users started experiencing “elevated error rates and latency” at that time, noting that the issues were affecting ChatGPT, its Sora text-to-video AI tool, and OpenAI APIs. OpenAI added a separate line for “elevated error rates on Sora” at 5:23AM ET, and later updated the status for both to “partial outage.”
As of 6:32PM ET, OpenAI’s tracker reported a “full recovery in the API,” and that “Nearly all ChatGPT components are now working properly for all users.” The one spot of trouble, however, is voice mode, which still has elevated error rates.
Some users were able to access ChatGPT, but found that the service was sluggish and taking much longer than usual to respond. Others, like myself, were able to use the chatbot without any issues, so the outages and errors didn’t seem to impact everyone.
Perplexity, the AI search engine service that utilizes some OpenAI models, also reported experiencing outages and reporting “slowness and elevated error rates” on its status page. Perplexity’s issues started at around 7AM ET, according to Downdetector.
Update, June 10th: Noted OpenAI and Perplexity’s status updates.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, in a blog post published Tuesday, says an average ChatGPT query uses about 0.000085 gallons of water, or “roughly one fifteenth of a teaspoon.” He made the claim as part of a broader post on his predictions about how AI will change the world.
“People are often curious about how much energy a ChatGPT query uses; the average query uses about 0.34 watt-hours, about what an oven would use in a little over one second, or a high-efficiency lightbulb would use in a couple of minutes,” he says. He also argues that “the cost of intelligence should eventually converge to near the cost of electricity.” OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on how Altman came to those figures.
AI companies have come under scrutiny for energy costs of their technology. This year, for example, researchers forecast that AI could consume more power than Bitcoin mining by the end of the year. In an article last year, The Washington Post worked with researchers to determine that a 100-word email “generated by an AI chatbot using GPT-4” required “a little more than 1 bottle.” The publication also found that water usage can depend on where a datacenter is located.
Google rolled out a bunch of new features with Android 16 on Tuesday, but the company appears to be saving its big Material 3 Expressive redesign for a future update. The update doesn’t feature the design language’s revamped elements, and a source tells Android Authority’s Mishaal Rahman that Google is planning to launch the new look on September 3rd, 2025, instead.
With Android 16, Google is starting to roll out support for Live Updates with progress-centric notifications and enhanced settings for users with hearing aids. The updates are coming to Pixel devices first, but according to Google, Android users will have to wait for another update to see Live Updates “fully realized.”
Google officially took the wraps off Material 3 Expressive following a leak last month, which features updates to icon shapes, type styles, and color palettes with “more natural, springy animations” across the Android interface. You can still check out some Material 3 Expressive updates in the Android 16 QPR1 beta that’s available now, but Rahman notes that Google plans on launching more design updates in the next Android 16 QPR1 Beta 2.
Google is expected to include Android’s desktop mode in a September launch as well. The new mode, which builds on Samsung’s DeX platform, optimizes apps and content for large-screen devices. It will allow you to resize multiple app windows across your screens, as well as connect phones and tablets to external displays for a desktop-like experience. Users with a Pixel 8 and up can try out these features in the Android 16 beta, but the rest of us will likely have to wait a few more months.
While a smarter Siri may have been a no-show at WWDC, Alexa Plus, the generative AI-powered overhaul of Amazon’s voice assistant, is finally appearing in the wild.
No one at The Verge has access yet, but Amazon spokesperson Eric Sveum tells me over a million people now do — up from “hundreds of thousands” just last month. And while it was initially a struggle to find anyone who had it, there is now evidence that Alexa Plus is finally out there, based on recent Reddit and Facebook user posts.
According to Sveum, Alexa Plus is now being rolled out to customers with Echo smart speakers and displays “at an increasing pace” following its late March launch, and the company will “make it even more broadly available over the summer,” he says.
The slow rollout is down to Panos Panay’s insistence that all Alexa Plus problems be ironed out before the full release, according to a recent profile of the new head of Amazon devices and services in The Wall Street Journal. It reported that “he knows that getting Alexa+ right is critical because it will be released to millions of people who depend on the technology across multiple devices. It’s a very public rollout.”
First announced in September 2023, the supercharged Alexa faced more than a year of delays, reportedly in part due to the challenges of imposing the new technology on top of the existing Alexa assistant.
It was finally relaunched under Panay last February as an entirely new assistant, and was slated to roll out to US users in the Early Access program in March. When it eventually gets its full release, the new assistant will cost $19.99 a month and be free for Prime members.
However, it sounds like it’s not fully ready for primetime. Several features announced at the launch event aren’t yet in Early Access. According to Sveum these include asking Alexa to “jump to your favorite scene on Fire TV; order groceries hands-free; order delivery through Grubhub; schedule your next spa visit; brainstorm the perfect gift idea; set personalized reminders and Routines for your family; create personalized music — on the fly” and “Access Alexa+ on browser.” That last one feels big, as personal computers are a place that Alexa has long struggled to gain traction and is somewhere it will need to be to compete with ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.
Sveum says that these missing features “will ship over the coming weeks and months” and that nearly 90 percent of announced features are live in Early Access. These include the big one, a more conversational voice assistant, which I tested briefly at the launch event. Plus, the ability to ask Alexa to remember important details you tell it and recall things from documents you’ve sent to it (Alexa now has its own email address).
Several features announced at the launch event are still not part of the Early Access program.
Alexa Plus can also manage your calendar and move music from room to room, says Sveum. It can book you an Uber, find tickets for an upcoming event, and source someone to come fix something via Thumbtack. For smart home control, you can create Alexa Routines by voice, control multiple devices at once, and customize your own smart home widget on Echo Show devices. Smart cooking timers are also live, says Sveum.
“A lot of customers are telling us they love having natural, free-flowing conversations with Alexa. It enables them to complete more complex requests like controlling multiple smart home devices at once, deep dive on music or trending topics,” Sveum says. “We’re also getting lots of positive feedback about how easy and helpful it is to get things done — like coordinating calendars, making reservations, and taking care of weekly meal planning.”
There haven’t been any formal reviews of Alexa Plus yet (Amazon PR seems to be keeping a tight lid on this one), but one USA Today columnist got in through the Early Access program. He was largely complimentary about the experience, writing he’s “been very pleased – and occasionally quite impressed.”
This is also the general vibe on Facebook and Reddit user groups from those with access, but there are clearly some bugs to work out. “It’s early days, but it feels a tiny bit closer to what I have with ChatGPT,” said one Reddit user.
Another user agreed, noting they liked how it remembered things they mentioned to it and could recall them. But they did say they weren’t happy that Alexa couldn’t access some smart temperature sensors that the previous Alexa could. One user said controlling multiple smart home devices at once was impressive, but another said they reverted to regular Alexa as the Plus version couldn’t control their smart air fryer.
Control of smart home devices is clearly going to be a huge hurdle here. Existing smart voice assistants with their command and control structure can generally be relied upon to do the correct thing (assuming they heard/understood you). However, the transition to these more conversational, intuitive assistants is potentially fraught with danger, especially when it comes to controlling things in your home. Still, I’m very much looking forward to putting it to the test.
Warner Bros. Discovery has announced plans to split itself into two companies, separating its streaming and studios divisions from its linear television businesses. The split is expected to be completed by mid-2026 and is supposed to help “maximize the potential” of its portfolio of brands, according to the company.
Warner Bros. Television, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, DC Studios, HBO, and HBO Max, alongside their respective film and television libraries, will fall under a new “Streaming and Studios” company. Another company, described as “Global Networks,” will run entertainment, sports, and news television brands, including CNN, Bleacher Report, the Discovery Plus streaming service, TNT Sports in the US, and Discovery TV channels across Europe.
WBD had previously announced plans in December to restructure its business into two operating divisions, with WBD serving as the parent company. Now, it’s clear that was a precursor to this forthcoming split.
“The cultural significance of this great company and the impactful stories it has brought to life for more than a century have touched countless people all over the world. It’s a treasured legacy we will proudly continue in this next chapter of our celebrated history,” said WBD CEO David Zaslav. “By operating as two distinct and optimized companies in the future, we are empowering these iconic brands with the sharper focus and strategic flexibility they need to compete most effectively in today’s evolving media landscape.”
Final names for the two companies weren’t given, so it’s not clear which will get the Warner Bros. brand. Zaslav will serve as President and CEO of Streaming and Studios, while WBD CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels will be President and CEO of the Global Networks company. Both will continue in their current roles at WBD until the separation. Global Networks will receive a 20 percent stake in the Streaming and Studios spinoff.
The Financial Times reported in July 2024 that Zaslav was considering creating a new company to separate WBD’s streaming business from the growing debts of its suffering legacy TV networks. As today’s announcement doesn’t mention leadership plans for WBD following the separation, the future of the WBD brand is uncertain.
The Fairphone 6 will launch this month with a more modular design according to leaked details obtained by WinFuture. Alongside Fairphone’s usual repair-friendly build, the new device will seemingly support interchangeable accessories such as a card holder, lanyard, and ring grip.
That sounds similar to the modular accessories on the CMF Phone 1 and Phone Pro 2 by Nothing, which support screw-on lanyards, wallets, and kickstands. WinFuture reports that the Fairphone 6 will also have a two-part rear cover split into upper and lower sections, allowing owners to mix and match colors along with the accessories, with black, white, and green among the launch options.
Dutch site NieuweMobiel reports that the phone will launch on June 25th, and offer 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Much like previous Fairphone models, it will be user-repairable, with replacement parts available for the earpiece, speaker, USB-C port, display, battery, and three camera lenses. When it arrives, it’s expected to cost €549.99 (around $625), a substantial drop from 2023’s €699 ($800) Fairphone 5. That phone never launched in the US, so we’ll have to hope that changes this time around.
Seagate has announced a new 4TB version of its storage expansion card for the Xbox Series X and S consoles. It’s the first time the company has introduced a new capacity since launching 2TB and 512GB versions of the expansion card in late 2021.
The 4TB card is available starting today through Seagate’s online store and Best Buy for $499.99, but is discounted to $429.99 as part of a limited-time launch promotion. For comparison, the Xbox Series S starts at $379.99, while the Xbox Series X starts at $599.99.
But, the added storage may be required by folks with large libraries of games. Depending on the options and expansions you install, games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Microsoft Flight Simulator can easily gobble up hundreds of gigs of storage each. You can increase the Xbox’s storage capacity using an external drive connected over USB, but to play games directly from an SSD, without having to move files around, requires the storage expansion cards.
You may want to wait for a price drop, though. The 2TB version of the card was originally priced at $399.99, but is now listed on Seagate’s online store for $249.99, with a current promotion bringing it down to $219.99.
For nearly three years, Seagate was the only company offering expandable storage cards for the Xbox Series X and S, but in mid-2023 Western Digital introduced its own. Its current pricing and capacities are comparable to Seagate’s offerings. Western Digital hasn’t yet introduced a 4TB option.
Although the added competition did help bring the price of Seagate’s expansion cards down, they’re still more expensive than storage expansions for the PlayStation 5, which allows you to use any SSD as long as it meets certain performance requirements. Not only does Western Digital already sell a PS5-compatible 4TB SSD for $339.99, it also offers an 8TB option, although that will set you back a steep $699.99.
The FDA has issued its first ever approval on a safety consultation for lab-grown fish. That makes Wildtype only the fourth company to get approval from the regulator to sell cell-cultivated animal products, and its cultivated salmon is now available to order from one Portland restaurant.
Wildtype announced last week that the FDA had sent a letter declaring it had “no questions” about whether the cultivated salmon is “as safe as comparable foods,” the customary final step in the FDA’s approval process for lab-grown animal products. The FDA has sole responsibility for regulating most lab-grown seafood, whereas the task is shared with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for cultivated meat.
The FDA’s pre-market safety consultation is voluntary, but is “helpful for marketability,” IP lawyer Dr. Emily Nytko-Lutz, who specializes in biotechnology patents, explained to The Verge. “There are other pathways involving self-affirmation of safety as well as a longer food additive review process, but the FDA’s authorisation with a ‘No Questions’ letter is a middle ground.”
Wildtype salmon is now on the menu at Haitian restaurant Kann in Portland, Oregon, and the company has opened a waitlist for the next five restaurants to stock the fish. It joins Upside Foods and Good Meat, two companies with permission to sell cultivated chicken in the US, while Mission Barns has been cleared by the FDA but is awaiting USDA approval for its cultivated pork fat. At a state level, the situation is more complicated, with eight states issuing bans on lab-grown meat as the technology becomes a conservative talking point.
Smart wearables company Ultrahuman has launched a new device that monitors changes in home environments that could impact your health. Ultrahuman says its $549 Home gadget tracks air quality, temperature, noise, light, and humidity, helping users optimize the climate within their homes to improve breathing and sleeping habits.
The Ultrahuman Home resembles a Mac Mini in terms of size and appearance. Its air quality features monitor levels of fine particulate matter, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and chemical pollutants like acetone and formaldehyde. The device also tracks noise levels and various types of light exposure, including UVA, UVB, UVC, blue, red, green, and infrared, to help users “align home lighting with their body’s natural rhythm,” according to Ultrahuman.
Users who have an Ultrahuman Ring wearable can pair it with the Home device to unlock an “UltraSync” feature that suggests how environmental data may be impacting heart rate, sleep, and recovery patterns. For example, Ultrahuman says that UltraSync can suggest if the user was woken during the night by elevated noise or light levels.
We should note that the Ultrahuman Home won’t actually address the concerns it detects. The device is equipped with sensors and microphones for monitoring environmental changes via a mobile app, but it doesn’t include features like a built-in dehumidifier or air purification, and it doesn’t offer any way to integrate it into smart home ecosystems. There’s no recurring subscription to pay, and Ultrahuman says the “data and insights are with the user, always.”
Still, $549 is expensive for a device that doesn’t actually do anything — except maybe increase paranoia — unlike smart indoor air quality sensors available from Ikea, Amazon, SwitchBot and others.
The head of engineering for Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robot division, left the company on Friday. Milan Kovac announced his departure on X, insisting that it “will not change a thing” about the company’s plans, which, as of March, meant building thousands of robots this year alone.
Kovac insisted that he was leaving Tesla only to “spend more time with family abroad,” adding that his “support for @elonmusk and the team is ironclad,” heading off speculation that his exit might have been prompted by Musk’s political activity or recent public squabble with Donald Trump. In his own tweet, Musk thanked Kovac for his “outstanding contribution to Tesla over the past decade.”
Musk has called the humanoid Optimus robots Tesla’s “most important product development,” and has repeatedly leaned on the division to generate hype as EV sales slow and the company’s stock price tumbles. “The only things that matter in the long term are autonomy and Optimus,” Musk told CNBC in May, referring to the company’s separate plans for self-driving cars, set to be deployed in a “robotaxi” service in Austin this month.
Bloomberg reports that Autopilot chief Ashok Elluswamy will take over responsibility for Optimus, which is at a critical stage. In March Musk claimed the company could make “at least one legion of robots this year and then probably 10 legions next year,” which would mean around 5,000 robots by the end of this year, and 50,000 in 2026. To do so, it will have to overcome China’s recent restrictions on exports of rare earth minerals and magnets, which are essential for the robots’ construction.
You can play the latest entry in the Final Fantasy series, Final Fantasy XVI, on Xbox right now. Shadow dropped during today’s Xbox Games Showcase, players will be able to experience FFXVI’s slick-ass kaiju monster battles, incredible voice acting, and ho-hum story (because, hey, you can’t expect Square Enix to be perfect at everything). In addition to the base game, players will also get access to FFXVI’s two story DLCs The Rising Tide and Echoes of the Fallen which adds more story and a new Eikon (the game’s version of summons) Leviathan.
But that’s not all as the partnership between Xbox and Square Enix continues apace. Last year, Xbox brought the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV to the system. Later it was rumored, due to Square Enix’s stated desire to expand their games beyond the PlayStation ecosystem, that it would bring the Final Fantasy VII remake project to Xbox as well. That rumor has been proven true. The absurdly titled Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, which is the first entry in the FF7 reimagination project combined with the Yuffie-centric DLC, is coming to Xbox this winter.
Psychonauts developer Double Fine just announced a new game — and you’ll be able to play it soon. Keeper, a game where you play as a walking lighthouse with a seabird as a buddy, is launching on October 17th, 2025 on Xbox and PC.
Here’s a description from an Xbox Wire post about what you can expect from the game:
It has stood alone for countless years, but now the Lighthouse finds companionship in a curious and spirited seabird, who encounters the Lighthouse while seeking refuge from a creeping malevolent presence spreading throughout the isle. The Lighthouse discovers that its bright beam of light is able to affect the flora and fauna, and even seems to ward off the withering tendrils spreading throughout the world around it.
Meanwhile the bird proves to be a useful and dextrous ally, able to interact with strange and ancient mechanisms. Together, these two unlikely friends set off together on an epic adventure, an odyssey of mystifying metamorphosis, and a journey that will take them into realms beyond understanding.
The art in the trailer is absolutely gorgeous, and it looks like the world will be a beautiful one to explore. The game will be a “story told without words” and is a “strange, otherworldly tale,” according to the post. I’m looking forward to it.
Microsoft first revealed Gears of War: E-Day during its Xbox Games Showcase last year, and at today’s showcase it’s now putting a 2026 release window on the latest entry in the sci-fi shooter series. Developed by The Coalition, E-Day will release in a year that marks 20 years since the original Gears of War game debuted on the Xbox 360, and 25 years of Xbox.
E-Day is set 14 years before the first Gears game, and “tells the story of the first Locust emergence on Sera.” It’s being billed as an origin story, and once again stars Marcus Fenix. E-Day is the first title in the series since Gears 5 debuted in 2019.
Last month, Microsoft also announced a Gears of War remaster that also brings the franchise to PlayStation for the first time. Gears of War: Reloaded is launching on August 26th for Xbox Series X / S, PlayStation, and PC for $39.99. The remaster features 4K resolution, 120fps support, and cross-progression and cross-play for all platforms. Gears of War: Reloaded will also have two-player co-op for the campaign and 8-player multiplayer.
Xbox chief Phil Spencer confirmed the E-Day release window during the Xbox Games Showcase earlier today, and also revealed “the next Forza” is coming in 2026 too, as well as “the return of a classic that’s been with us since the beginning.” That classic may well be the Halo CE remaster I wrote about last year.
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