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Apple has started selling its new HomeView smart speaker, a 7-inch square-with-rounded-corners screen equipped with a built-in camera. It pairs with your iPhone or iPad to offer personalized content from your email or text messages, using facial recognition to identify each family member. But in a video report, one Wall Street Journal reviewer discovered an issue while testing its smart home feature: WSJ REVIEWER: I've spent the last few years turning my home into a smart home that I can boss around with Siri. A smart lock, a special garage door opener, motorized shades, even a Raspberry Pi in my basement hooked up to my router that lets non-HomeKit devices from Ring and Nest work with Siri. It was all going well, the smart home controller of my dreams even. But then... Reviewer: Open the garage door. Siri: Sorry, I can't help with that on this device. Please use the Home app. Reviewer: Siri, you have the Home app, and you're called the HomeView. Open the garage. Siri: Sorry, I can't help with that on this device. Reviewer: Open the smart wifi garage. Siri: Sorry, I can't help with that on this device. Please use the Home app... WSJ REVIEWER: Apple explained that for security reasons, Siri won't unlock your doors or open the garage through the HomeView using voice commands. You can only tap the screen to unlock them. The concern is that someone could shout a command from outside and gain access to your house. This security concern doesn't make much sense to me. This thing can recognize my face, confirm it's me, and pull up all sorts of information from my phone. But it can't recognize me enough to open my garage? Finally I got Siri itself to explain this top-security measure. Siri: For security reasons, I can't unlock your door or open your garage from this device. Because anyone nearby can speak to a shared speaker. Reviewer: But I'm looking at you! You see my face, and you hear my voice! Siri: I understand. But I don't have a camera to see you. And voice recognition alone isn't secure enough for unlocking your home. Reviewer: You don't have a camera? Siri: That's right. This device doesn't have a camera, so I can't see you. I can only hear your voice, which is why I need you to use your iPhone or Apple Watch to unlock the door. Reviewer: I see, Siri. You're gaslighting me. An Apple spokesperson said they'd send out a software update next month that would let HomeView unlock garage doors and other door locks by voice once it's recognized a user. (And Apple said the update would also fix Siri's hallucination that it didn't already have a built-in camera.) In the end, the speakers sounded good, and the reviewer appreciated how Apple's HomeView didn't have ads on its screeh like the Amazon Echo Show. But the device's built-in Siri voice assistant was "about as reliable as a Magic 8 Ball... And the frustration is so real. Sometimes Siri just doesn't get the voice recognition right... Oftentimes, other devices in the room think I'm talking to their Siri... And sometimes Siris just talk to each." iPhone: Siri is built into your device, so you don't need to download... HomeView: Downloading support for Siri. iPhone: To download the Apple Support app, open the App Store on your device, search for Apple Support, and tap get or the download icon. I've installed support. Reviewer (muttering): I honestly could cry. This might be a first - crying. iphone: I'm software, so I don't have feelings. But it sounds like you're going through a difficult moment. It can really help to talk to someone you trust, like a friend, family member, or a professional who can support you". They complained that sometimes Siri "is just slow, or it gets stuck thinking and thinking and thinking." (It took three minutes to answer their young son's question "What's 10 times 40?") They concluded HomeView's facial recognition feature works well, and so does its smart home functionality (especially when they fix its door-unlocking next month). But its built-in Siri AI is "not great." It's gotten better this year, and the reviewer found it "genuinely useful for some things on their iPhone. "But Apple still has a Siri problem. And on a device that's supposed to be the intelligent center of your home, that's a big problem." It reminded the reviewer of another new first-generation Apple product, the iPhone Duo: "good hardware waiting for the software to catch up."

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15 Nov 2026 9:53pm GMT

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15 Nov 2026 8:37pm GMT

Purism launches crowdfunding for its Librem 5 V2 Linux smartphone, featuring a RISC-V processor, PureOS, 8GB RAM, and a $1,599 price tag.

15 Nov 2026 7:48pm GMT

Rspamd 4.3 fixes security vulnerabilities, improves phishing detection, and strengthens email authentication and malicious attachment inspection.

15 Nov 2026 7:19pm GMT

Fast food restaurant Wendy's drew an image of their redheaded mascot in the style of GTA, posting it on social media with the message "Our ride-or-dies are gonna love what we have in the works," and the date 11/19/26. That's how widespread the hype has become for Thursday's release of Grand Theft Auto VI. The BBC reports that fictional brands from the game are now actually appearing on billboards across Miami, the city that inspired the game's "Vice City" setting. And GamingBible.com reports Rockstar Games has announced Grand Theft Auto VI: The Festival, "a real-life music festival to be held in Miami, Florida... on November 21, 2026. Featuring two stages, the festival will be headlined by some incredible artists that, to state the obvious, feature on the game's soundtrack...." YouTube said pre-launch videos about the game have already racked up a whopping 40 billion views (with 900 billion views for videos about all GTA games). And now YouTube is partnering with Rockstar Games to offer several special features on launch day: Fans can drop themselves directly into Vice City using the GTAVI: Visit Vice City Shorts Effect. The feature includes multiple iconic backgrounds, making it easy for creators and fans to build their own launch-week videos... Listeners can find the official GTAVI soundtrack (featuring Morgan Wallen's "Last Thing You Need") and the complete GTA series anthology playlist directly on the YouTube Music homepage throughout launch week... Starting November 19 at 12 AM ET, fans worldwide can tune in to youtube.com/youtube for a 24 hour stream packed with live gameplay, creator podcasts, and original content featuring top creators... [On launch day] fans can jump straight into the global broadcast by clicking the custom GTAVI-themed YouTube logo (Yoodle) on the YouTube homepage At one one study suggests nearly one in a five U.S. workers plan to skip work on Thursday, writes the New York Post: Roughly 18% of workers plan to take Thursday off to park themselves on the couch and wreak havoc across the revamped Vice City, according to data from BambooHR, which analyzed information from 3.4 million US-based employees... Half of the joystick jockeys planning to take off will simply call in sick instead of requesting time off, BambooHR reported. The hordes of workers playing hooky could cost the US economy $1 billion in lost productivity, International Business News reported. Forbes reports the game has $1.18 billion in pre-orders from 12 million buyers, according to market research firm Sensor Tower, puting it ahead of Grand Theft Auto V, which had 7 million pre-orders. The BBC points out that "Already, both PlayStation and Xbox, the two platforms the game is initially releasing on, have said the game has become the most pre-ordered title in their digital stores' history. This may be partly down to its huge size (212GB), meaning many are pre-ordering to "pre-load" the game, ready to play it immediately at launch rather than waiting to download it. But that's a problem for other games, reports GamingBible.com: With most current-gen consoles having somewhere between 512 GB and 1 TB of free storage before expansion upgrades, it means if you're a gamer with lots of games installed, you're going to have to make some sacrifices and delete any older games you're not currently playing. As reported by Push Square, it seems that Electronic Arts is also getting the message, as it allegedly is showing messages inside games asking players not to uninstall in anticipation of the GTA VI launch. GamingBible.com notes one final concern for hardcore gamers. "Rockstar Games recently confirmed the game targets 30fps, even on high-end consoles like the PlayStation Pro. While it probably won't affect the game's total sales, many gamers are appalled."

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15 Nov 2026 6:34pm GMT

"Huawei believes its new Luterra S2 is more than just a home backup battery," reports Electrek: This high-tech Huawei home battery pack hopes to hold back Tesla's latest Powerwall with silicon carbide technology, AI-powered energy management baked in, and enough modular storage to keep even large homes bright and warm when the rest of the block goes dark... The Chinese tech firm is calling it an "all-in-one residential energy system" that combines a hybrid inverter, modular battery storage, and AI-powered energy management in a single, simple, and stackable package that's available in single-phase versions that put out between 3 and 10 kW and three-phase versions that can push up to 20 kW. The Luterra S2 is the first system of its kind to use Huawei's proprietary full-silicon carbide (SiC) architecture, which promises improved efficiency, power density, and ease of use. It's so easy, in fact, that Huawei claims it can be installed and commissioned in just minutes. Huawei's basic Luterra S2 configuration starts with "just" 5 kWh of battery energy storage and 3 kW of output. That's enough to keep essential household appliances, lighting, and electronics running during a power outage, but you'll want to keep going if you're preparing for more than a day or two without power. If that sounds like you, Luterra's got you covered. The modular system can be expanded with modular 7 kWh LFP battery packs and can keep scaling up to a massive 336 kWh of total storage across interconnected systems, with inverter output peaking at an impressive 60 kW using three 20 kW units in parallel. Keeping all that power cool and quiet is a Huawei-developed passive cooling system that does without external fans, keeping operating noise levels below a claimed 29 dB (about the same as my Mac mini).

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15 Nov 2026 5:34pm GMT

Asahi Linux moves toward GPL licensing amid concerns over commercial code reuse and removes installation restrictions for M3 Macs.

15 Nov 2026 4:06pm GMT