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Using a robot vacuum has always been a bit hazardous for pet owners. Leaving a robovac to do its thing in your absence can be a problem if your less-than-perfectly-trained dog or cat also does its thing while you’re out. A quick Google of “Roomba dog poop” gives you some idea of what the outcome can be, as unheeding robots with spinning brushes barrel into the mess and proceed to spread it liberally around the house.

But now, Roomba-maker iRobot say it’s fixed this scatological problem. The company’s latest robovac, the Roomba j7+, uses built-in machine vision and AI to identify and avoid pet messes of all sorts. “It’s a big deal for us,” iRobot founder and CEO Colin Angle tells The Verge. “We’ve been working on it for a long time and we’re guaranteeing that it works.”

This last point is particularly important. Competing robovacs like the Roborock S6 MaxV and 360 Smart Life robot vacuum advertise the same mess-avoiding capabilities, but Angle is skeptical that they’re fully reliable. He says iRobot has been working on the problem for years, even creating a huge database of fake pet mess to train their AI vision systems.

“Robotics is supposed to be glamorous, but I don’t know how many Play-Doh models of poo we created,” says Angle. “Many, many thousands.” The result, though, is unwavering confidence in the company’s poop-identifying capabilities. “Our competition are starting to claim that they do this, too, but it’s more like [they do it] at CES with the right lighting,” he says. “We felt the need to really put a line in the sand and say, this is real, it’s not a gimmick. If you have a pet we’re not going to let you down here.”

The fact that avoiding dog mess is the headline feature of iRobot’s latest robot vacuum cleaner gives some suggestion about the problems and progress with these machines. They’ve certainly become more efficient and useful over the years, but there are still some basic teething problems that show up when the rubber hits the carpet.

iRobot is hoping to fix some of these with an update to its navigation and control software, known as iRobot Genius. This was initially launched in August last year for compatible Roombas, and it not only maps users’ homes to allow for more granular cleaning instructions, but uses built-in machine vision to identify furniture and specific “clean zones.”

Version 3.0 of iRobot Genius, which launches today as a free upgrade, adds a number of new features. These include a “Quiet Drive” mode which stops the robot from making a noise when heading to and from cleaning jobs; cleaning time estimates for specific rooms; improved mapping capabilities, including suggested room names based on the robot’s ability to identify items of furniture; and a new “Clean While I’m Away” function. This means, if people like, they can allow iRobot access to their phone location, and whenever they leave the house it will trigger a cleaning session.

The biggest update, though, is only for the new Roomba j7+ which uses a new camera to identify not only dog mess but other hazardous obstacles, like socks, shoes, and headphones. Again, this is done using onboard machine vision, but it does require some action on the part of the owner. If the Roomba finds an unexpected obstacle, it’ll ask via the connected app whether it’s a temporary or permanent fixture. If it’s permanent (like dangling TV cables), then the machine will automatically create a no-clean zone for it.

As Angle explains, it’s all about making iRobot’s products feel “like a partner” rather than a tool — trusted services that can anticipate owners’ wishes. “The idea is, we know what time it is, we know where we are in the home, and we have an idea of the floor plan in rooms,” he says. “We should start applying respectful rules to our technology and holding our technology to the same types of accountability that we hold each other to in the home.”

It’s also how the company wants to differentiate itself from cheaper competitors. The new Roomba j7+ costs $849 with a base station that holds up to 60 days’ worth of dirt, which is many multiples compared to the price tag of basic robovacs. Angle says iRobot’s free software upgrades, now and in the future, should help persuade customers to choose them.

In addition to the features listed above, the new Roomba j7+ also has a new high-end design, a simplified control system (three buttons instead of one), Bluetooth LE capability to simplify onboarding, and a new beveled rim that’s supposed to stop the machine from getting stuck under cabinets and refrigerators. The Roomba j7+ goes on sale today in the US and Canada from iRobot’s website and will be available for purchase at selected retailers from September 19th. It can also be bought without the cleaning base station for $649.

About a month ago Radford unveiled its stunning 62-2 sports car, a modern revamp of the Lotus 62 race car with modern materials and modern running gear. The company already showed off the Classic and Gold Leaf variants of the car. On Wednesday it finally took the wraps off of the track-focused John Player Special edition. This model features a 600-horsepower supercharged Toyota-sourced V6, dual-clutch transmission, full downforce aero kit, carbon fiber Dymag wheels, and carbon ceramic brakes. It’s properly bonkers.

The engine is a 3.5-liter 2GR-FE based Toyota V6, the same one Lotus uses for its various Evora and Exige models. In stock naturally-aspirated form the engine makes around 300 horsepower, but Radford and Lotus have kicked that up a few notches with some serious modifications. First, obviously, there is a supercharger. Inside the engine, however, the Radford gets special pistons, connecting rods, and camshafts. To control it all, the company tuned the engine with some seriously aggressive calibration. It’s rowdy and ready for a really fast and fun track day.

In comparison to the other less hardcore versions of the Type 62-2 the JPS model has some wild bodywork upgrades to keep the car planted on track. At the front there is a massive splitter, along the sides the car features bigger air inlets to help that supercharged lump gulp down oxygen, and out back there’s a diffuser as deep as the oceans. While it probably won’t be pulling proper race car lap times without a separate rear wing, the Type 62-2 JPS is probably a good bit faster than you can wring out of it anyway. And at the end of the day, that’s what matters.

This version of the car is alleged to drop under 2200 pounds, which puts its power to weight ratio around 3.66 pounds per horsepower. That rate is slightly better than a 1997 McLaren F1, so, you know, it’s probably good. I mean, sure, it’s not a BMW V12, and it hasn’t won Le Mans, but this thing is guaranteed to be measurably better in every metric than the F1 ever was. I think I know which one I’d rather have. Especially because the Radford surely won’t cost eight figures. There’s no word on what it will cost, but I’d bet orders of magnitude less than a McLaren. Only 12 of these hand-painted JPS liveried machines, so it’s rarer than the Macca, too! 

Microsoft Corp. warns that attackers are exploiting a previously unknown vulnerability in Windows 10 and many Windows Server versions to seize control over PCs when users open a malicious document or visit a booby-trapped website. There is currently no official patch for the flaw, but Microsoft has released recommendations for mitigating the threat.

According to a security advisory from Redmond, the security hole CVE-2021-40444 affects the “MSHTML” component of Internet Explorer (IE) on Windows 10 and many Windows Server versions. IE been slowly abandoned for more recent Windows browsers like Edge, but the same vulnerable component also is used by Microsoft Office applications for rendering web-based content.

“An attacker could craft a malicious ActiveX control to be used by a Microsoft Office document that hosts the browser rendering engine,” Microsoft wrote. “The attacker would then have to convince the user to open the malicious document. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.”

Microsoft has not yet released a patch for CVE-2021-40444, but says users can mitigate the threat from this flaw by disabling the installation of all ActiveX controls in IE. Microsoft says the vulnerability is currently being used in targeted attacks, although its advisory credits three different entities with reporting the flaw.

On of the researchers credited — EXPMON — said on Twitter that it had reproduced the attack on the latest Office 2019 / Office 365 on Windows 10.

“The exploit uses logical flaws so the exploitation is perfectly reliable (& dangerous),” EXPMON tweeted.

Windows users could see an official fix for the bug as soon as September 14, when Microsoft is slated to release its monthly “Patch Tuesday” bundle of security updates.

This year has been a tough one for Windows users and so-called “zero day” threats, which refers to vulnerabilities that are not patched by current versions of the software in question, and are being actively exploited to break into vulnerable computers.

Virtually every month in 2021 so far, Microsoft has been forced to respond to zero-day threats targeting huge swaths of its user base. In fact, by my count May was the only month so far this year that Microsoft didn’t release a patch to fix at least one zero-day attack in Windows or supported software.

Many of those zero-days involve older Microsoft technologies or those that have been retired, like IE11; Microsoft officially retired support for Microsoft Office 365 apps and services on IE11 last month. In July, Microsoft rushed out a fix for the Print Nightmare vulnerability that was present in every supported version of Windows, only to see the patch cause problems for a number of Windows users.

On June’s Patch Tuesday, Microsoft addressed six zero-day security holes. And of course in March, hundreds of thousands of organizations running Microsoft Exchange email servers found those systems compromised with backdoors thanks to four zero-day flaws in Exchange.

One of my favorite things about VR is that it’s actually fun to watch other people play. While it’s not necessarily difficult to stream Oculus gameplay from the headset to your TV, it might not be doable; it’s done through casting, so you need a TV or receiver compatible with that technology. If you don’t, you’re out of luck.

PSVR, on the other hand, has the built-in benefit of being a PlayStation console, first and foremost. Obviously, it’s designed to be plugged into your TV, making it easy to see exactly what your friend is doing in virtual space. Half the fun I’ve had with PSVR is watching my friends swing around the room with a big, goofy headset, then turning my attention to the TV to check out exactly what they’re seeing.

Logitech is announcing a new all-in-one dock that’s designed for the new realities of a post-pandemic hybrid workforce. “When the pandemic hit, we spent an incredible amount of time with our end users to understand their needs and pain points in a work-from-home world. The result was Logi Dock,” says Scott Wharton, general manager and vice president of Logitech video collaboration.

The $399 Logi Dock lets you connect up to five USB devices and up to two monitors, all while charging a laptop with a single cable connection. The dock itself is a giant speaker, because it’s also designed with meetings in mind. There are meeting controls on the Logi Dock that let you quickly mute or disable video in Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom. Logitech has even included a built-in noise-cancelling speakerphone that makes it easy to join meetings without having to use a separate dedicated microphone or headset.

Image: Logitech

Logi Dock will also integrate into your calendar, thanks to Logitech’s Logi Tune software. If a meeting is about to start, the Logi Dock will light up to let you know, and you can join just by tapping the dock. If you’re not using the Logi Dock for meetings, you can also use it as a speaker for your PC or any Bluetooth-enabled device.

The Logi Dock includes two USB-A 3.0 ports at the rear, alongside two USB-C 3.1 Gen 1 ports, a DisplayPort, a HDMI port, USB-C upstream, a Kensington lock slot, and a Bluetooth pairing button. At the side there’s also a USB-C 3.1 Gen 1 port.

Logitech’s Logi Dock will be available in both graphite and white options this winter for $399.

• Facebook exec Andrew “Boz” Bosworth posted a video of him pelting Mark Zuckerberg with pillows.
• The video may have been captured using Facebook’s forthcoming smart glasses made with Ray-Ban.
• Ray-Ban recently posted a teaser page on its website with the date “09.09.21.”

We may have just gotten a sneak peek at Facebook’s smart glasses in the form of Mark Zuckerberg getting pelted with pillows. 

On Monday, Facebook executive Andrew “Boz” Bosworth posted a video to Twitter that shows snippets of his daily life: fishing with his family, playing cornhole in the backyard, and … throwing pillows at his boss.

While Zuckerberg is surprised by the first two — so much so that he’s actually taken to the ground by one rather large throw pillow — he successfully catches the third, raising his arms victoriously:

—Boz (@boztank) September 6, 2021

Given Boz’s caption — the humble sunglasses emoji — plus the fact that he runs Facebook’s Reality Labs, which builds AR and VR products for the social media giant, there’s a high likelihood the videos were captured by Facebook’s forthcoming smart glasses, which it’s building with Ray-Ban parent company Luxottica.

Very little is known about the project, which has been in development since as far back as 2017. During a developer conference that year, Facebook showed ordinary-looking glasses that had the ability to place digital objects into the real world. A person who tried on a prototype version of the glasses told Insider’s Rob Price in 2019 that the glasses look like “really high-end glasses” rather than an a traditional, bulky AR headset.

Boz said during an Instagram Q&A earlier this year that Facebook is considering adding facial-recognition technology to the glasses, but only if it can properly address the legal and privacy issues that would go along with that. 

While these hints don’t provide the clearest picture of the glasses’ capabilities, we may soon learn a lot more: Ray-Ban posted a teaser page on its website emblazoned with Facebook’s logo and the date “09.09.21” inside a pair of glasses.