The selection committees have made their picks and the brackets are set. Another installment of arguably the best sports weekend of the year is about to tip off. March Madness or the NCAA basketball tournaments begin today with two First Four games on the men’s side. Thanks to the NCAA’s partnerships with Warner Bros. Discovery for the men’s tournament, and Disney (ESPN) for the women’s, you can stream every game and some will even be available for free. Here's your guide on how to stream March Madness 2023, from where to watch to when the games begin.

When does March Madness start?

Depending on who you ask, the 2023 NCAA Tournament either begins Tuesday or Thursday. On March 14th and 15th, the March Madness schedule includes First Four or four “play-in” games take place. These allow four more teams to “make the tournament” than if the selection committee just filled the two 16-seed and two 12-seed slots with one school in each spot. Some people argue the entire event doesn’t really start until Thursday and Friday, March 16th and 17th, when the First Round officially tips off.

No matter which side you land on, the First Four games will start at 6:40PM ET each night on truTV while Thursday and Friday games begin at 12:15PM ET, with the first game on CBS. These two days are the busiest and some of the most popular of the tournament as 16 games take place on each. Yes, these are two of the least productive days of the entire year in the US. It’s also the most popular time to schedule a vasectomy. Action continues with the Second Round on Saturday and Sunday, March 18th and 19th, before a break until next Thursday. This is when the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight rounds are played over the course of the second four-day weekend of the tournament. The Final Four is set for Saturday, April 1st while the National Championship Game will go down on Monday, April 3rd.

How to stream the 2022 Men’s NCAA Tournament

Lance King via Getty Images

Unlike during the regular season when you need to know which network your team’s conference has a broadcast deal with to find most of the games, Warner Bros. Discovery Sports holds the rights to the entire Men’s NCAA Tournament. This means you’ll be able to watch all 67 games, including the First Four, on CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV. If you have cable, you’re all set. If you pay for a live TV streaming service like YouTube TV or Hulu, you’re also in good shape. If you don’t have either, don’t worry, you can still watch a good chunk of the tournament.

Warner Bros. Discovery Sports will allow anyone to watch the games broadcast by CBS on the web and mobile devices without a TV provider log-in. Paramount+ users will be able to do the same through that streaming app. If you do have credentials from your TV plan, you can stream everything through March Madness Live that’s available on a host of devices. You can find it on Android and iOS for mobile and macOS and the web on the desktop. For streaming devices, it’s on Apple TV, Fire TV, Google TV, Roku and Xbox as well as some LG smart TVs.

With some of those home entertainment devices, Warner Bros. Discovery Sports will give you a very handy feature. On Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Google TV and Xbox One, the March Madness Live app will allow you to stream two games at once. On the web, however, is where you’ll find the best option. Starting this year, the broadcaster has added the ability to stream up to four games simultaneously. If you opt for mobile or tablet versions, you’ll get picture-in-picture viewing while you browse away from the main game. The company has also expanded its Fast Break whiparound broadcast beyond mobile and web for 2023, adding the real-time analysis of big plays to its apps for streaming devices, consoles and smart TVs.

NCAA/WBD Sports/CBS Sports

YouTube TV has also added multiview streaming just in time for the tournament, but the platform is only offering preselected groupings – you won’t have the ability to pick which games you follow on your own right now. YouTube TV’s version is also only available to selected subscribers in early access, but it will be available on any smart TV or streaming device that supports the service.

Warner Bros. Discovery Sports has also added CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility this year, giving you easy access to live radio broadcasts in the school pick up line. On iOS, the March Madness Live app now supports Live Activities, so you can get live updates right on your lock screen should you be burdened with a meeting during a game you’re interested in.

You can certainly use your cable interface or streaming TV service of choice, but Warner Bros. Discovery Sports has made March Madness Live a centralized hub for the tournament. If you have log-in credentials that get you access to everything, using those will allow you to jump from game to game much faster than scrolling through a guide. And the broadcaster also gives you all of the alerts and stats you could ask for, including the ability to easily follow picks from your March Madness bracket if you filled it out on NCAA.com.

Streaming the 2022 Women’s NCAA Tournament

USA TODAY USPW / reuters

As if one National Championship tournament in March wasn’t enough, the Women’s edition takes place at the same time. It’s March Madness, after all. The First Four is scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, March 15th and 16th, with the March Madness schedule consisting of the First and Second rounds playing out between Friday, March 17th and Monday, March 20th. Sweet Sixteen and Elite 8 runs Friday to Monday again, starting March 24th, and the Final Four and National Championship Game are set for March 31st and April 2nd.

If you notice there are some scheduling differences so that there are only women’s games on Mondays and both the Final Four and championship are slotted between the same events for the men. So when it comes down to crunch time, you can watch the conclusion of both tournaments live without having to sacrifice viewing the other.

ESPN has the rights to the Women’s NCAA Tournament, so you can expect games to show up on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPNEWS. The first two of the First Four games will be broadcast at 7PM ET and 9PM ET on ESPNU Wednesday night with the second pair on ESPN2 Thursday evening. First Round matchups begin at 11:30AM ET on Friday and Saturday on ESPN2, with subsequent games on those days expanding to the other networks.

Once again, if you have a cable plan or streaming TV service with Disney’s sports channels you’re all set. However, the best place to watch all of the action will be the ESPN app. Here, you’ll get access to a multicast feature that will give you up to four games at once (YouTube TV didn’t specify if it would include women’s games in its multiview trial). Multicast will be especially handy during those first four days of the tournament when there’s lots of action happening at the same time. However, it's only available on Apple TV and Xbox One.

Google has been scrambling to catch up to to OpenAI for months, ever since the latter dropped its conversational bot, ChatGPT, and took the generative AI industry by storm. Google's first attempted response with the release of its Bard AI (which immediately misquoted easily verifiable stats about the JWST) was tepid at best so the company has announced a new tact: they're packing every single product they can with AI — just like they did in the Google+ era with social features.

The new features will be coming to virtually all of Google's Workspace products. According to the company users will be able to "draft, reply, summarize, and prioritize" emails, "brainstorm, proofread, write, and rewrite" text documents, autogenerate images and even video with Slides, have Sheets create formulas autonomously, automate transcription notes in Meet and "enable workflows for getting things done" in Chat. 

For example, in Docs, users will simply need to type the subject of their assignment into the page to have Google's generative AI suite quickly gin up additional text. The system can also rework (hopefully improving) what the user has already drafted, even if they're just bullet points, using the Rewrite function. There's also a new “I’m feeling lucky” option in Gmail which your company's HR department is just going to adore.

Following the Bard debacle, Google doubled down on its commitment to ensuring that its AIs don't turn out like Miucrosoft's. "AI is no replacement for the ingenuity, creativity, and smarts of real people," Johanna Voolich Wright, VP of Product at Google Workspace, wrote on Tuesday. "Sometimes the AI gets things wrong, sometimes it delights you with something offbeat, and oftentimes it requires guidance." To that end the company is building its products within the bounds of its AI Principles, which are as legally binding as the company's old "Don't be evil" motto. The new AI-enabled Workspace suite is expected to roll out to English language users in the US by the end of the month with additional languages and regions arriving in the near future.     

Nearly a year after it was first announced, Hyper Light Breaker finally has a gameplay trailer. Developer Heart Machine shared the long-awaited first look through IGN. The studio promised Breaker would be a departure from its predecessor, 2016’s Hyper Light Drifter. The trailer reiterates that, showing how just how much will change with the series switching to 3D.

Where Hyper Light Drifter pulled most directly from early Legend of Zelda entries like A Link to the Past, its sequel shows obvious Breath of the Wild influences, with nods to Dark Souls and PlatinumGames titles like Bayonetta 3. Judging from the trailer, traversing Breaker’s open world, a domain known as the “Overgrowth,” will be a highlight, thanks to the hoverboard and glider your character will have at their disposal. The trailer also promises “endless loadouts” and “endless deaths.” In other words, expect tough enemies that will push you to learn the ins and outs of the weapons you find throughout the game. Oh, and you can see how the optional co-op play will allow players to band together to take on some of Breaker's more difficult challenges. 

With the gameplay reveal, Heart Machine also announced a new release date for the game. Hyper Light Breaker will now arrive on Steam early access this fall, instead of the spring as previously announced. 

Do you shop in-person because you invariably have questions for staff? Apple thinks it can offer some of that experience at home. It's rolling out a "Shop with a Specialist over Video" feature that gives US iPhone shoppers a one-way video chat with a retail employee. You can ask for advice on the model to buy, investigate payment options and learn about switching from Android.

The video call option is available between 10AM and 10PM Eastern every day. The company tells Engadget that the feature is accessible on any device that can reach Apple's website. You communicate through audio alone — the Specialist can't see you.

This won't help if you're looking for hands-on time, and you probably won't get the answers you'd find in a full review. You're also out of luck if you need help shopping for a Mac or other Apple products. Still, this may be useful if you'd rather not navigate product pages just to find answers. To some degree, this also makes Apple's retail services more accessible if you can't travel to a store.

The addition comes at an important moment for Apple. Like other hardware manufacturers, it took a bruising in the fall as a tough economy and supply shortages hurt sales. An online shopping tool isn't likely to play a major factor in improving those sales, but might help customers who would otherwise be hesitant to buy an iPhone sight unseen.

YouTube TV is now much more useful if you're a sports fan. The service is rolling out an early access multiview feature that shows up to four sports streams at once. Visit the "Top Picks For You" section and you can pick from pre-chosen multiview groups, such as NCAA March Madness games. You can jump to a full-screen view for each match, and switch the audio and captioning to the stream that captures your attention.

Importantly, the technology isn't limited to specific platforms or devices. It supports all smart TVs and living room media players that can run YouTube TV in the first place. You won't need a high-powered device like you do with some services. The trick, as the company's German Cheung explains, is to move the processing to YouTube's servers — your hardware only has to handle one feed regardless of how many streams you're watching. The tech is borrowed from YouTube's co-streaming feature.

 If you're part of the early access phase, you'll see both an alert and an email. YouTube TV expects to deploy multiview streaming for all subscribers in the "coming months." The company tells Engadget it plans to expand functionality over time, including the option to customize the stream selection.

The timing is convenient. March Madness is just getting started, and the MLB season start is weeks away. Multiview could make YouTube more compelling if you're deciding on a TV provider (particularly an internet-only service) and are determined to follow as many games as possible. The broad support may also be alluring if competing services don't offer this level of multi-stream support on your living room equipment of choice. The official March Madness Live app, for instance, only supports four-way streaming on the web — you're limited to two streams elsewhere.

Amazon has pulled back the curtain on its first slate of Project Kuiper antennas. The terminals, which will transmit data to and from Amazon’s Low Earth Orbit internet satellites, resemble furniture. The largest of the bunch is even the size of a full-blown patio table — it measures 19 inches by 30 inches. That model is intended for enterprise, government and telecommunications operations. Amazon said it will deliver internet speeds of up to 1 Gbps.

The standard terminal for consumers has a smaller footprint, measuring 11 inches square with a thickness of one inch. Without its mounting bracket, it weighs less than five pounds. This antenna should be able to deliver speeds up to 400 Mbps, Amazon says.

The company hasn’t revealed how much the terminals will cost, but says it should be able to build the standard model for less than $400 per unit. SpaceX's Starlink charges $599 for a terminal. That said, there will be a more compact and wallet-friendly terminal available from Amazon too. A seven-inch-square antenna will weigh one pound and offer speeds of up to 100 Mbps.

Amazon

Amazon designed its own baseband chip for the terminals. It says the chip, which has the code name Prometheus, has "the processing power of a 5G modem chip found in modern smartphones, the capability of a cellular base station to handle traffic from thousands of customers at once and the ability of a microwave backhaul antenna to support powerful point-to-point connections." The same chip is being used in Project Kuiper satellites and ground gateway antennas. Amazon says the chip will enable each satellite to process up to one terabit of traffic per second.

Project Kuiper is set to deploy two prototype satellites on the maiden flight of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket. That launch is scheduled for May. Amazon expects to begin mass production of satellites by the end of this year and to commence launching them in the first half of 2024. It plans to start offering Project Kuiper service to customers later next year. Earlier this month, Amazon received conditional FCC approval to launch thousands of Low Earth Orbit satellites.

TikTok has a large science community, and the social network wants everyone to know it on Pi Day. The company is launching a dedicated STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) feed that shows only these more educational videos. You may learn to code or discuss experiments without having to wade through TikTok's usual entertainment-focused content.

Not surprisingly, TikTok is taking steps to block misinformation in this new section. Curator Common Sense Networks will study content to make sure it's relevant to the STEM feed, while the fact-checkers at Poynter will gauge the accuracy. Any videos that don't pass both inspections won't reach the new feed.

Users in the US will start seeing the STEM feed in the "coming weeks," TikTok says. The social media giant has already been experimenting with a "Topic Feed" in some regions to court fans of gaming, sports and other common subjects. The science-oriented feed is considered an expansion of this initiative.

The launch isn't surprising. Governments and schools are concerned TikTok may harm children and teens, to the point where schools are suing the company over alleged mental health problems. A STEM feed creates a positive space for "co-learning, inspiration and enrichment," as TikTok claims. It's also potentially lucrative, as TikTok claims that STEM-linked hashtags have received more than 110 billion views so far.

Whether or not this helps with TikTok's survival in the US is another matter. Some politicians want to ban TikTok outright over fears it's a national security threat. Officials are concerned China may collect data about key Americans or spread propaganda. CEO Shou Zi Chew is set to testify before a House committee next week on privacy, security and child safety issues. A STEM feed won't necessarily address those worries.

At its annual health event, The Check Up, Google announced a slew of updates for Search, Fitbit and developers. On the Search front, the company says it will soon identify community health centers and make it clear whether those facilities have free or low-cost care options. It seems there will be a label that reads, "offers free or low-cost care based on individual circumstances."

In addition, Google says it has employed Duplex to call hundreds of thousands of US healthcare providers and verify their information. The conversational AI has also been used to check whether providers accept various state Medicaid plans.

After several pauses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Medicaid will have a re-enrollment deadline this year. If folks in the US who are currently enrolled in the program fail to sign back up by March 31st, they'll lose their healthcare coverage. To help ensure people maintain their coverage, Google says it will make it easier for everyone to find re-enrollment information on Search.

Google

To assist those seeking help in a crisis, Google has teamed up with ThroughLine, which it says is the "largest verified network of mental health and crisis helplines around the world." As a result of the partnership, Google will expand the number of crisis helplines it displays at the top of Search results in more languages and countries for queries related to personal crisis situations, such as suicide and domestic violence.

Google

As for Fitbit, Google is opening up more of the Health Metrics Dashboard features available to users who don't have a subscription. The company says that, for instance, users will be able to view trends for metrics such as breathing rate, skin temperature and blood oxygen levels over longer periods of time.

Meanwhile, Google touched on some health-focused updates for developers. It discussed a suite of development tools called Open Health Stack, which it described as "open-source building blocks built on an interoperable data standard." In other words, Open Health Stack is designed to help developers build apps for healthcare workers to access key data and insights, such as population health data.

Google says the suite is based on Fast Healthcare Interoperability Standards and can be used to build apps that keep data secure for offline use in areas without internet connectivity or cell coverage. For instance, a developer in Kenya called Intellisoft Consulting is building a maternal health app designed to help community health volunteers and pregnant women in rural communities.

AI isn’t just good for writing term papers or clickbait financial explainers; it could help save lives in the medical field. At Google’s annual The Check Up healthcare event, it announced AI-related partnerships for ultrasound readings, medical language models and cancer treatments — areas where the technology could someday serve as a force for good.

Google sees AI as crucial in reading ultrasound devices in regions without enough trained specialists. Although the sensors are more accessible than ever, they require experts to conduct exams and interpret images. The company’s AI models could help simplify that process by identifying data like the early detection of breast cancer and gestational age in expectant mothers. To help make that a reality, the search giant is partnering with Kenya nonprofit Jacaranda Health to research AI-based ultrasound treatments for mothers and babies in government hospitals. “Through this partnership, we’ll conduct exploratory research to understand the current approach to ultrasound delivery in Kenya and explore how new AI tools can support point-of-care ultrasound for pregnant women,” said Google’s Health AI head Greg Corrado and Engineering VP Yossi Matias in a blog post today.

The company is also working with Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Taiwan to research how AI can detect breast cancer via ultrasound as an alternative to mammograms, which have limited availability in lower-resource regions. Mammograms can also be less effective in populations with higher breast density. 

Evelyn Hockstein / reuters

In other areas, Google says its medical-focused large language model (LLM) has improved significantly. Med-PaLM 2, the company’s next-generation healthcare LLM, recently scored 85 percent on doctor-level medical exam questions — an 18 percent improvement from the previous version’s score. “This model not only answered multiple choice and open-ended questions accurately, but also provided rationale and evaluated its own responses,” said Corrado and Matias.

However, don’t expect a ChatGPT-like bot to replace your doctor anytime soon, as Google cautions the technology still isn’t ready for real-world work settings. For example, an evaluation on criteria like scientific factuality, precision, medical consensus, reasoning, bias and harm found “significant gaps” when answering medical questions. Corrado and Matias noted, “We look forward to working with researchers and the global medical community to close these gaps and understand how this technology can help improve health delivery.”

Google has also partnered with Mayo Clinic to explore AI’s part in planning radiotherapy for cancer treatment. The research focuses on reducing the tedious and time-consuming steps of the radiotherapy process — most notably, “contouring.” This technique requires clinicians to draw lines on CT scans to separate cancerous areas from nearby healthy tissues that the radiation could damage, a process that can take up to seven hours for one patient. The company says it will soon publish research from the three-year study while formalizing an agreement with Mayo Clinic to explore more radiotherapy-based research, AI models and commercial uses.

Finally, Google sees AI as helping with chest x-ray screening for tuberculosis. The company is partnering with an AI-based organization to make AI-powered TB screenings widely available in Sub-Saharan Africa. Its partners have committed to donating 100,000 free screenings to help detect tuberculosis early and provide early treatment to reduce its spread.

I'm just so tired of all the poop. Now that I'm dealing with three cats, an 11-month old's diapers and potty time with my four-year old, I just needed some relief from mountains of excrement. Enter the Litter Robot 4, the latest iteration of Whisker's automated litter box (a product we initially covered in 2005!). It's a small, spaceship-looking device that automatically rotates after your cat does its business, separating waste into a storage bin and leaving the remaining clean litter behind. Instead of scooping a box daily (or several times a day for multi-cat households), you only need to yank out the Litter Robot's bin bag and replace it with a new liner once a week. Sounds like a dream, right?

Well, mostly. For one, it's an eye-watering $699, putting it out of reach for most cat owners. And like practically every "smart" device, I ran into issues while setting up the Litter Robot 4. After a few months of testing, I've encountered many quirks – sometimes it didn't sift properly, occasionally its cat detecting sensors went haywire, and it didn't really prevent litter from reaching my floors. Despite all of that, though, it still made my life easier. Thanks to the Litter Robot 4, I had to deal with animal poop just a bit less every day. I'll chalk that up as a win.

As a cat owner since 2009, I've always eyed self-cleaning litter boxes with envy. But almost every option seemed like a headache back then: Some required specialized litter, others were prone to jamming and failure. And even though the Litter Robot has been around for a while, I've always considered it too expensive to be practical. But now that my household has grown, thanks to that aforementioned poopy infant and a pair of adopted kittens, I was eager for some relief. (One of those kittens also grew into an enormous 18-pound beast – you can imagine what his litter box looks like.)

I know several people who loved the Litter Robot 3, and it was generally well-reviewed, despite being simultaneously bulky on the outside and a bit too small for cats on the inside. The Litter Robot 4 improves on its predecessor with a sleeker design (it's a bit less wide, so it should fit better in small rooms), as well as a larger opening for big cats. It's also Wi-Fi connected, which makes it easy for you to check on litter and waste levels with Whisker's app. Thanks to new weight sensors, you can track how often your cats are using the Robot, and the company is also planning to launch more individualized tracking later this year. In theory, that should let you know if one of your cats is using the litter box too often, or not enough.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Setting up the Litter Robot 4 was fairly easy – until I ran into some software issues. You just have to yank the 24-pound egg-like bot out of its box, dump some clumping litter into the main compartment, and throw an included bag in the waste bin. The device itself is made entirely out of plastic, making it fairly light and easier to maneuver. The inner portion where the litter sits is covered in a rubber-like material, which should make it fairly durable and easier to clean than hard plastic.

After plugging in and turning on the Litter Robot, though, I was faced with my worst fear with any new smart gadget: Pairing issues. Without being paired to the app, the Robot wouldn't self-clean at all. A few hours of frustration later, I learned that Whisker was having a system-wide issue and I had to wait a few days for the company to deliver a fix.

So it goes with smart devices, you might say. But it definitely felt silly (and a bit enraging) to be manually cleaning this $699 litter box. Without that initial connectivity, it was no better than the $20 litter tray my cats use upstairs. Once the app was set, the Robot ran through a cleaning cycle and evenly sifted the remaining litter. Upon seeing this new litter box move and make sounds (it's surprisingly quiet!), my three cats wouldn't go near it. At that point, it was just a $699 monument to pet excess.

A few days later, the bravest of the bunch — my 18-pound tuxedo cat named "Jiji" — finally jumped into the Litter Robot to explore. After several hops in and out, he deemed it safe and left his first offering, which was promptly cycled into the waste bin. The Litter Robot seemed pleased. Within a week, all of my cats were onboard. And around then, I noticed something strange: I couldn't smell any poop or pee! Sure, the Whisker app told me the waste bin was full, but you wouldn't know that while standing right in front of it. That's a good sign for anyone who wants to place the Litter Robot in a cramped living room.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

My honeymoon period ended when one of my cats left a streak of feces inside the Robot. No amount of sifting and cycling got rid of that. Eventually, I started to notice some strange behavior from the device (perhaps in protest to what that cat did). Sometimes its indicator lights would flash red — a sensor fault, according to the Whisker app. The only way to fix that was by turning the unit on and off. Occasionally, the Robot wouldn't fully clean itself after one of my cats used it. So I had to hit the cycle button up top to get it going.

Over the course of a week, I typically have to deal with three of four issues like this from the Litter Robot. Few of those involve touching actual poop, and it's far less than I'd be cleaning a normal litter box. Still, for $699, I wish it were more reliable. I wouldn't trust it to work for an entire week if my family went on vacation. Just don't lose your cat sitter's number.

Cleaning out the Litter Robot's waste bin is a cinch — just yank out the liner bag and replace it with another. While you could stick with Whisker's products, I haven't had any trouble using Glad's 13-gallon ForceFlex bags. The company also recommends wiping down the Litter Robot's internals once a month, as well as refreshing the litter with an entirely new batch. That process isn't tough, but I found it easiest to accomplish by dragging the device outside. And yes, it also means you'll need to get your hands dirty a bit. There's just no escaping the poop.

Whisker's mobile app does a great job of alerting me when the waste bin is full, or when litter is running low. And it may sound strange, but I genuinely appreciate seeing how often my cats use the box. It's particularly helpful if one cat is feeling sick – going to the Robot frequently could be a sign of illness. The app also keeps track of your cat's weight, which could help you avoid over or under-feeding. (And of course, a big weight drop could be another health concern.)

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

After a few months of testing, only two of my cats continue to use the Litter Robot 4. Still, they use it frequently enough to fill up its waste bin every week. (We also have two normal litter boxes around the house for the lone renegade.) My one major annoyance, aside from all of those random errors, is the Litter Robot's open design. I'm aware it's something cats prefer, but it also leads to litter being strewn around the floor. Unfortunately, Whisker's bundled gate and front step for the Litter Robot don't really help much. If you do end up getting this thing, I'd suggest adding a litter mat up front, and be prepared to vacuum or sweep every few days.

The Litter Robot 4 is an extravagance, but it's one that tired cat owners may find useful. Just don't expect any miracles. You'll still need to watch out for errors, do some manual scrubbing and sweep up stray litter. The perfect self-cleaning litter box isn't here yet, but the Litter Robot 4 is as close as you'll get.