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If you've been putting off any spring cleaning — who hasn't? — now might be the time to consider a helper. Robot vacuums have been popping up everywhere and, though they can be pricier than a do-it-yourself option, the Shark AI Ultra 2-in-1 robot vacuum is currently making a play for your home with a 43 percent off sale. It's still not an impulse buy in the check out lane, but, at $400 versus $700, it's the best deal we've seen since it launched.

This 2-in-1 model uses smart home mapping to clean in a precise grid, empties itself and has improved suction power. Shark also claims the mops can scrub floors 100 times per minute. Plus, like most robot vacuums, it's controlled through an app.

Shark has produced a few different robovacs in recent years, alongside impressive competitors like iRobot and Anker. This sale makes the 2-in-1 model cheaper than Shark's standard AI Ultra vacuum — even with its price currently down from $600 to $485. The standard model doesn't differ too much from the 2-in-1 model and made the list of our best robot vacuums of the year. But, it is missing a few features, such as the water reservoir, reusable mopping pads and improved suction. 

If you don't care too much about your robovac self-emptying, the Shark RV2410WD IQ 2-in-1 Robot Vacuum and Mop is a cheaper option, on sale at $295 versus $380. 

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IK Multimedia has a launched a new audio interface with features designed specifically for guitar and bass players. Like the brand’s other products in the category, this model, the AXE I/O ONE, is portable and affordable: It’s currently available from the company’s online store and from authorized retailers for $130. 

Users can change a guitar’s input from a tighter and sharper tone to a thicker and bolder one using AXE I/O ONE’s Z-TONE input circuit. The audio interface also comes with JFET input that enables warm, tube-like sounds. An external volume pedal gives users access to hands-free control, so they don’t have to stop playing to navigate the accompanying software. There’s also a dedicated Amp Out port, which among other things, allow users to have a hybrid setup with a real and a virtual guitar.

In addition, the AXE I/O ONE comes bundled with thousands of AmpliTube 5 SE presets and TONEX SE tone models. TONEX SE also gives users a way to convert a real rig into a plug-in, so they can have even more rigs to use within their programs. Finally, this audio interface only needs to be plugged in via USB-C and doesn’t need an external power supply. Since the AXE I/O ONE has a compact design and is compatible with the latest iPads, as well, it sounds like IK Multimedia created it for especially for people who need or prefer to record on the go. 

Google is updating Maps with more detailed information about national parks in the US to make them easier to navigate and potentially prevent from getting lost. When you search for a particular park on Android or iOS, you’ll now see photos and videos of its key attractions — say the Old Faithful or the Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone — taken by others who’d been there before. 

Maps will now also highlight an entire trail from beginning to end when you search for it instead of just dropping a pin on its general location. You’ll even find details regarding its difficulty, along with information on whether it’s more suitable for walking, running or cycling. To make it even more informative, Google will show other people’s reviews of parks and trails, along with other useful details, such as where to find the nearest public bathroom. 

Since national parks are huge and are often confusing, Google will start highlighting park entrances later this month, as well, with Maps pointing you right to the trailhead. Finally, Google will make it possible to download offline maps for parks so that you don’t have to worry about not being able to find your way if you suddenly lose access to the internet. Downloadable maps will also available later this month. 

These features will initially roll out for national parks in the US, but Google plans to make Maps more useful to hikers around the world and will add more detailed information for national parks in other countries later this month. If you want to virtually explore a park first, though, you can hit up Google Street View where you can find imagery for dozens of national parks.

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Looking forward to playing Endless Dungeon next month? Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait half a year longer to play the roguelite twin-stick shooter, because Amplitude Studios and Sega have pushed back its release date to October 19th. It was previously slated for a 2022 debut, but the developer ultimately announced a May 18th, 2023 launch date for the PC (Steam and Epic), Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. In a post announcing their decision, the team said they believe it’s important to spend extra time working on the game after all the feedback they received across all their OpenDev sessions. They also promised to announce a release date for the Nintendo Switch at a later date.

In addition to fixing the bugs and issues the testers had unearthed, the developers are planning to use the extra time to improve some of the game’s key elements. They’re working to make player progression feel less random and more organic, and they’re tweaking the economy so that all three resources — namely, science, food and industry — feel important to the game. “The scarcity of resources is important so that your decision of what to invest in feels impactful,” they explained. They’re also incorporating smaller changes, such as differentiating the districts from each other more and improving certain aspects of the game’s multiplayer mode. 

If you decide to wait instead of canceling your pre-order, you can get three additional free skins for Comrade, Fassie and Shroom. They’ll also be available at no additional cost for early buyers upon the game’s release for a limited time. Take note that since the Endless Dungeon‘s release has been delayed, its planned Closed Beta, which you’ll be able to access if you purchase the Last Wish Edition, will also be pushed back to September.

Easily one of the most fascinating devices I've had the pleasure of reviewing is the Polyend Tracker. It's hard to overstate what a unique piece of hardware it is. The company followed up last year with the Play, another sample-based groovebox that took a more immediate approach to music creation. Now the company is back, yet again, taking its undeniable sampling prowess mobile with the Tracker Mini.

The Mini takes the core workflow of the original Tracker and shrinks it down to something under one pound, and just 6.7 by 5.1 inches. That's not the smallest groovebox in the world, but quite a bit smaller than something like the SP-404 MKII. It retains full compatibility with the Tracker though, so you can start a song in the studio and finish it on the go, or vice versa. 

The Tracker Mini does lack the satisfying jog wheel, versatile pads and FM radio, but it does gain a microphone and a built-in battery. What's more, it actually has more memory and a faster CPU, so the Mini can hold up to eight minutes of mono samples in its pool, up from just two. Plus it supports audio over USB, stereo sampling and even comes with it's own hard case — a must have for protecting your music making gear on the go.

The 4310 mAh batter should last up to eight hours on a charge, though that will largely depend on how you're using the device, obviously. The mechanical keyboard style controls and jog wheel are replaced with gamepad style buttons. It may make navigating the interface slightly more difficult, but many of the shortcut and function keys made the transition. So creating a track shouldn't require to much menu diving or gratuitous button presses. 

Most importantly, though, it has eight tracks of audio and / or MIDI, all the same sample editing tools, effects, beat slicing features, granular and wavetable synthesizers. It is easily capable of not just sketching out an idea, but building an entire song or even album. It looks likely to be one of the most powerful and interesting portable grooveboxes on the market when it starts shipping in July. You can preorder one now directly from Polyend or through retailers like Perfect Circuit for $699.

Arkansas has become the second state to pass a law requiring social media platforms to verify the ages of their users. Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders has signed the “Social Media Safety Act” into law, which requires companies verify the ages of users under 18 and to gain parental consent before minors create new accounts.

Utah recently passed similar measures, which also impose strict rules on how social media platforms handle the accounts of their youngest users, including an age verification requirement. The laws are part of a growing movement to enforce age verification measures and other age-based restrictions for social media companies. At least three other states are currently considering similar legislation.

The laws are also controversial. While lawmakers have for years called for more protections for teens on social media, privacy advocates and civil rights groups have opposed age verification mandates. Likewise, some child safety groups have argued that comprehensive privacy legislation would be a more effective way to protect children.

Under the Arkansas law, slated to take effect in September, companies are required to check the ages of their users via government-issued IDs like a driver’s license or “any commercially reasonable age verification method.” But, as CNNnotes, it’s not entirely clear which companies will be forced to comply with the law. The legislation includes a number of exemptions that would seem to excuse some prominent platforms.

For example, it states that platforms focused on “professional networking” and “career development” are exempt, which would seem to be a direct reference to LinkedIn. It also has exceptions for gaming-focused companies, as well as companies that allow “a user to generate short video clips of dancing, voice overs, or other acts of entertainment in which the primary purpose is not educational or informative,” which could be interpreted as excluding TikTok.

The New York Attorney General has announced that its youth vaping lawsuit against Juul is over, ending with an agreement that distribute a $462 million settlement between six states and Washington DC. “JUUL lit a nationwide public health crisis by putting addictive products in the hands of minors and convincing them that it’s harmless," Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. "Today they are paying the price for the harm they caused.” The settlement will be split among the states of New York, California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Mexico and the District of Columbia.

The 2019 lawsuit alleged that Juul engaging in deceptive marketing and illegally sold products to minors by glamorizing vaping with ads that featured "young models using fruity, sweet and minty flavors that appealed to youth." In addition to the monetary penalty, the settlement includes strict restrictions to keep Juul from marketing its products that way in the future, including a ban on showing persons under 35 years of age using its products and rules that would keep Juul product placement from appearing in movies, tv shows, video games and even virtual reality.

This is the largest multi-state settlement Juul has made yet, but it's only a small part of the total the company has paid so far. In 2022, the company agreed to pay $1.2 billion, collectively settling thousands of personal and government lawsuits.

Juul will have 8 years to pay out the $462 million settlement, and it might need it. According to a 2022 valuation based on Cigarette maker Altria's investment in the company, Juul's worth has dropped dramatically since 2018. Despite the settlement, Juul is attempting to remain optimistic. "With this settlement, we are nearing total resolution of the company's historical legal challenges and securing certainty for our future," the company told ABC News. "Since our company-wide reset in the fall of 2019, underage use of JUUL products has declined by 95% based on the National Youth Tobacco Survey."

There are many things I think of when I hear the name "Max." There's Max Headroom, the '80s AI icon that's been on my mind a lot lately. Mad Max! Max Payne! Every friend I've ever had named Max (whose names I've always been jealous of). Even Homer Simpson's alternate persona, Max Power. But there's no universe where I associate "Max" with HBO, even though we've been living with "HBO Max" for years. "HBO" was always the dominant part of that name, whereas "Max" felt like a vestigial remnant from its sister network Cinemax.

Warner Bros.

So I'm sure that many viewers will be surprised to learn that HBO Max will be rebranded as "Max" on May 23rd. Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav, who spearheaded the $43 billion merger between WB and his previous company Discovery, announced the new service during a media event this morning. It's been a year since Zaslav finalized that merger and announced his intentions to combine each network's content. And, given the increasingly volatile world of streaming media, he likely had to move quickly. But the rebranding seems like a missed opportunity to align the new service with something people already know and love.

Now, to be clear, Zaslav's desire to build something new makes sense. HBO Max's May 2020 launch was notoriously rocky, so much so that it led to a round of executive firings. HBO Max was a blatant attempt to catch up with Disney+, which hit 10 million subscribers just a day after its debut. But it couldn't compete with Disney's seemingly limitless library of content. A month after HBO Max arrived, AT&T (TimeWarner's owner at the time) said the service only had 4.1 million active users. The company tried to make it seem more popular by saying it had 23.6 million "wholesale" subscribers, but those were mostly existing HBO customers who had never touched the HBO Max app.

As a relatively new Warner Bros. leader, Zaslav likely wanted to make a mark with a service of his very own. (Media executives just can't help themselves, remember Jeffrey Katzenberg's Quibi?) So long HBO Max, hello something that combines HBO's prestigious content with Discovery's vast library of unscripted reality shows. During today's media event, Warner Bros. executives stressed that the company wanted to highlight HBO's world-renowned branding — "HBO is not TV, HBO is HBO!" someone proclaimed boldly. But they also hinted that the company didn't want to stuff too much into "HBO" as a concept.

I also bet that Zaslav and crew talked to plenty of advisors and focus groups who made it clear that HBO would never be considered as family-friendly as Disney. A cautious parent may not want to subscribe to an HBO service, even if it was the only way to watch a new Discovery series for kids. As one WB executive pointed out, the company used to see double-digit shares of kids programming across their many networks, but that's "virtually disappeared" in the streaming era.

With the Max refresh, Warner Bros. is trying to fix many of HBO Max's underlying problems. The company says it's aiming to increase engagement (having a ton of new content helps!), enhance retention, strengthen performance and optimize monetization. A carousel of personalized recommendations should help to surface content users may ignore, and WB says Max will also be able to alert people if their subscription payments fail. These are basic features for any modern subscription service, so it's shocking to learn that HBO Max couldn't manage them on its own.

Of course, WB is also trying to "optimize monetization" by raising the subscription cost for 4K viewers. If you want to see Game of Thrones or the upcoming Flash movie in 4K, you'll need to spend $4 more for Max's "Ultimate tier." That's similar to Netflix's 4K strategy, so it's not entirely surprising, but it's still annoying. 

Let me be truly cynical: It doesn't really matter what Max is called. We're awash in terribly-named streaming services, like Peacock and Paramount+. It would have been nice to see WB highlight one of its most prominent properties, but lopping off the first half of HBO Max probably makes more sense than trying to hype up another ridiculous media name (Hulu somehow made it work, but Quibi will forever sound dumb). 

No matter what it's called, we'll still rush to Max to catch the latest episode of Succession or The Last of Us. In this era of streaming networks dumping mountains of content on us, it's somewhat refreshing to have premium shows airing weekly. That gives us time to truly absorb major events (like the most recent Succession shocker), and space to anticipate what comes next. Ultimately, that's HBO's superpower, and Zaslav knows it. When combined with the onslaught of cheap and addictive content from Discovery, he might be able to turn Max into a true Disney+ competitor.