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How The Google Pixel Tablet Killed The Smart Display

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Shot of the Pixel Tablet showing Home Panel smart home information.
The Pixel Tablet, with its charging speaker dock and more powerful processor, is a compelling replacement for underpowered smart displays. | Image: Dan Seifert / The Verge

With the arrival of the Pixel Tablet with a charging speaker dock at Google I/O this week, Google did what it does best: killed a product. Only this time, it didn’t just kill its product; it foreshadowed the death of the entire smart display category. Ah well. They had a good run, but folks, it’s the end of the line. The precise time of death was when Google exec Rose Yao described the new Pixel Tablet on its dock like this: “It feels like a smart display, but it has one huge advantage … Android apps.”

When one of really only two companies that make smart displays proudly proclaims that its shiny new smart home control device is not a smart display, the game is up. Yao also correctly pointed out one of two major problems with smart…

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Science and Tech

Montana Bans Telegram, WeChat, And Temu From Government Devices

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A picture of Telegram’s paper airplane logo surrounded by yellow triangular shapes
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

On Wednesday, Montana governor Greg Gianforte didn’t only ban TikTok state-wide. He also accused Telegram, WeChat, and the shopping app Temu of being “tied to foreign adversaries” and directed that they and similar apps be banned from government devices and all state business. Gianforte also cited TikTok owner ByteDance’s CapCut video editor and Lemon8 as examples of offending apps.

With this ban, Gianforte largely seems to be targeting apps with ties to China, given that ByteDance, Temu owner Pinduoduo, and WeChat owner Tencent are all based in the country. Telegram is the exception: it was founded in Russia but is currently headquartered in Dubai. Gianforte’s letter claims that the Russian government uses the app to “monitor users and…

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Beepberry Is A Blackberry Keyboard Tinker Toy From The Founder Of Pebble

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Beepberry device in between a banana and apple
The ‘Beepberry’ with other fruits accompanying it. | Image: SQFMI

Are you a hacker who happens to miss their Blackberry? Looks like there’s a new product that’s just your speed: the “Beepberry.” It literally grafts the keyboard of a Blackberry Classic onto a pocketable custom board designed to fit a Raspberry Pi Zero W, all paired with a 400 x 240 “Memory LCD” screen that looks like it was ripped from an old graphing calculator — but is a bit more sophisticated.

Beepberry is designed by Eric Migicovsky, founder of the gone-but-not-forgotten Pebble smartwatch and more relevantly co-founder of Beeper: the hacky all-in-one messenging app that stuffs every service from WhatsApp to iMessage (using a jailbroken iPhone) into one place.

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TikTok Is Now Banned In Montana

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TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies in Congress.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified in Congress to fight a federal ban. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

Montana Governor Greg Gianforte has signed a bill banning TikTok within the state — the first ban of its kind in the United States. The bill, SB 419, prohibits TikTok from operating “within the territorial jurisdiction of Montana” and demands mobile app stores make the app unavailable for Montana residents.

“To protect Montanans’ personal and private data from the Chinese Communist Party, I have banned TikTok in Montana,” Gianforte tweeted today.

TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter responded with a statement on Twitter. “Governor Gianforte has signed a bill that infringes on the First Amendment rights of the people of #Montana by unlawfully banning #TikTok, a platform that empowers hundreds of thousands of people across the state,” O…

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