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iRobot, the creator of the Roomba and the company that popularized robot vacuums in the first place, told investors on Wednesday that it has "substantial doubt about [its] ability to continue." Beyond declining sales the company reported that revenue decreased 47 percent in the US over the prior year in its fourth quarter earnings iRobot is also struggling to pay off its debts. The company took on a $200 million bridge loan to stay afloat while it waited for its $1.7 billion acquisition deal with Amazon to be approved, which it's still paying off. The European Commission ultimately investigated the acquisition in 2023, and rather than address its concerns, Amazon terminated the deal and paid out its $94 million termination fee. That wasn't enough to eliminate iRobot's problems, though. The company now plans to review its options and see if it can find another way to stick it out, including "refinancing the company's debt and exploring a potential sale or strategic transaction." The timing is particularly unfortunate given the line of new robot vacuums iRobot recently announced. The company has a new robot for most price points, but the Roomba 105 Vac Robot series, which are supposed to feature 70 times more suction than past models, and the Roomba Plus 505 Combo Robot + AutoWash Dock, which is able to clean corners better and has a dock that washes and heat-dries the robot's mop, stand out as notable improvements. The company is also adopting lidar sensors across the board, something that was missing from previous robots and should allow for better, more accurate mapping. It's possible new products help iRobot get to a better place financially the company still makes robots we recommend, after all but that doesn't change the fact that its facing stiff competition from companies like Roborock and Dreame, who are both getting much more adventurous with what their robot vacuums can actually do.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/irobot-has-new-roombas-but-it-doesnt-sound-confident-itll-be-around-to-sell-them-191747458.html?src=rss
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The second season of the fantastic detective dramedy Poker Face starts streaming via Peacock on May 8. Theres a trailer and it spotlights the many guest stars that will be showing up as suspects in the second season. These include folks like John Mulaney, playing a cop of some kind, and early 2000s heartthrob Katie Holmes. Thats just the tip of the iceberg. Fans of the first season know that Poker Face loves itself some guest stars. Giancarlo Esposito, Awkwafina, Justin Theroux, Cynthia Erivo and Melanie Lynsky will all be showing up in this new batch of episodes. For the uninitiated, Poker Face is (basically) an old-school mystery of the week show, recalling genre classics like Columbo. It stars Natasha Lyonne as a gritty New Yorker (duh) as she wanders the country solving crimes. She has a near-supernatural ability to tell when someone is lying, which helps a lot. The show was created by Rian Johnson, who polarized the Star Wars fandom with The Last Jedi before going on to make those well-regarded Knives Out movies. Two of those films have already aired on Netflix, with a third on the way. He also made some indie flicks earlier in his career, like Brick and Looper.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/poker-faces-season-two-trailer-features-guest-stars-like-john-mulaney-and-katie-holmes-184741470.html?src=rss
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Many people using older Chromecast devices experienced a shock in recent days when their units lost the ability to cast content. The company ended the brand last year, which led folks to think that this was a planned obsolescence of some kind. Heres some good news. Its just a software issue and Google is working on it. The company sent an email to users to say that its engineers are "working to resolve this as soon as possible, and will keep you updated when there is more to share. Google was fairly vague in its wording here, but at least we know a fix is coming. Yikes, Google really fumbled.RIP Chromecast. pic.twitter.com/XTLulM3EAy DLLN (@DLLNBRAND) March 12, 2025 The issue primarily impacts older Chromecasts and the Chromecast Audio device and prevents them from casting. Google says the cause of the problem has been identified but didnt reveal any specifics. However, it has cautioned users to not factory reset impacted Chromecast devices. This will lock users out of the gadget entirely. Google has suggested it would help these people, because performing a factory reset would likely be one of the first troubleshooting steps, but hasnt provided a time frame. One Reddit user claims to have found the problem that caused the devices to lose functionality, noting that it was most definitely due to the certificate baked into the Chromecast having expired. This person said that the certificate specified it would no longer be active after March 9 and, well, thats the day before many models started failing. For the uninitiated, the issue causes an untrusted device error whenever someone tries to cast on certain models. The only option is to dismiss the error, which disables casting. Impacted units include the 2nd-gen Chromecast from 2015 and the Chromecast Audio.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/google-apologizes-for-chromecast-outage-and-promises-a-fix-172103579.html?src=rss
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