Roomba maker iRobot information for chapter

iRobot, the corporate that introduced robotic vacuum cleaners to houses and well-liked tradition, has filed for bankruptcy. It plans to promote all belongings to its main provider, the Chinese language firm Picea Robotics. Buyers “will expertise a complete loss and never obtain restoration on their funding” if the deal is authorized, iRobot mentioned. The corporate didn’t talk about how the transfer would possibly have an effect on its workers within the US or elsewhere.

Amazon dropped its $1.7 billion acquisition of the corporate final 12 months after a veto risk from European regulators, leaving the Roomba maker with no different choice. Political scrutiny got here on two fronts: The corporate was additionally reportedly hit arduous by Trump’s tariffs in Vietnam, the place it manufactures merchandise for the US market.

iRobot launched its first Roomba in 2002, arguably inventing the world of robotic vacuums — and the primary robots to enter lots of our houses. Competitors from rivals has chipped away at its dominance, with different firms coming in at each decrease and better costs, like Roborock, Dyson and Anker’s Eufy.

— Mat Smith

The opposite huge tales this morning

I just like the illuminated charging bowl too.

IKEA’s revamp of its sensible house merchandise doesn’t finish with Matter assist. It additionally has some new Qi wi-fi chargers. First up, the $10 VÄSTMÄRKE combines a PopSockets-style telephone grip with cable storage in a donut-shaped package deal.

It might probably magnetically connect to iPhones with MagSafe or Pixel telephones with Google’s Pixelsnap magnets. Then there’s the $25 VÄSTMÄRKE wi-fi charger with lighting, a bowl-shaped charging pad within the middle on your smartphone or wi-fi earbuds.

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Extra coloration and higher dimming than a normal LCD.

LG says it would unveil its LG Micro RGB evo TV at CES 2026, however forward of that, it shared some preliminary details about the display screen. As a substitute of simply white lights, Micro RGB means the backlight might be any hue, due to individually managed crimson, inexperienced and blue Micro LEDs, providing a wider coloration array. This method is halfway between OLED’s individual-pixel lighting and TVs that use typical mini-LEDs.

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2025 noticed AI slop sludge into each nook and cranny of on-line life.

Merriam-Webster has chosen “slop” for its 2025 phrase of the 12 months. It’s outlined as “digital content material of low high quality that’s produced normally in amount via synthetic intelligence.” We’ve seen an absolute deluge of AI slop this 12 months, from faux film trailers on YouTube to AI-generated bands on Spotify. It was (sadly) .

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