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Home Assistant/ZDNET Home Assistant, a smart home automation system, is getting one of the biggest upgrades in years. The platform is getting voice control for the first time with the launch of the Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition, a new privacy-focused device manufactured by Nabu Casa. The new independent voice assistant runs locally and privately, independent of cloud services or internet connections. The open-source voice assistant hardware is available now at $59 and has dual…

ZDNET I’m going to preface this piece by saying the choice of widgets is personal, and what might be useful to me might not be useful to you. Even so, there’s a widget for everyone, and depending on the apps you have installed on your Android device, you’ll more than likely find one or two in this article that help make your day a bit more efficient. So, what are widgets? Simply put, they are additions…

Six months later, the Commission accepted a request to investigate the deal from Italy’s competition watchdog, which suspected that the transaction may pose concrete risks for competition. The Commission began its investigation in mid-November. It found that, while Nvidia likely holds a dominant position in the global market for discrete GPUs used in data centers, it has no incentive to limit the compatibility of its GPUs with orchestration software produced by rivals of Run:ai. Further,…

ZDNET OpenAI unveiled its o1 family models in preview in September, which have improved reasoning capabilities to work through more complex science, coding, and math problems. The only downside of these models is that because they ‘think before they speak,’ they take longer to process. This, however, could have been fixed today. Also: ChatGPT’s MacOS desktop just got a whole lot better on the 11th day of OpenAI On the last day of its 12 days…

If you’re ready to retire your LastPass subscription, you aren’t alone.  Password manager company LastPass was subject to security incidents in 2022. Following these events, LastPass has now separated from its parent company, GoTo, and intends to act as an independent company focused on achieving financial strength and improved security.  LastPass is working hard to rebuild its reputation and has recently announced a partnership focused on MSP and reseller password management. While no online service is completely…

Jack Wallen/ZDNET ZDNET’s key takeaways The Outlaw Audio RR 2160 Mk II stereo receiver is available on the company’s online store for $949.  It’s a high-end receiver that delivers amazing sound, has plenty of inputs and outputs, and has bass management that will floor you. It’s also far heavier than you’d expect. “If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it,” Duke Orsino said in Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.” The soundtrack…

Jack Wallen/ZDNET ZDNET’s key takeaways The Oukitel RT8 tablet is available now for $359.99 With an unbeatable battery life, a bright display that can be used in any light, and decent performance, this cost-effective tablet should be on everyone’s list. It’s heavy, and it contains a number of apps you’ll probably want to delete. Let me set the stage for this. I received the Oukitel RT8 tablet over a month ago. As soon as it…

ZDNET Following the 2024 US presidential election, X (formerly known as Twitter) has experienced one of its largest user exoduses since Elon Musk acquired the platform two years ago.  The day after the election, about 115,000 US web visitors deactivated their X accounts. Numerous celebrities, public figures, and media platforms, according to The Guardian and Prism Reports, have also announced their departures from the platform. Users seem to be flocking from X to alternative text-based social media apps,…