The Morning After: VAR and Roborace

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

You've made it to the middle of the week. We have just enough time to discuss the future of Nest and how VAR impacted the World Cup, along with a significant promise for the future of AI.

Oops?Elon Musk apologizes for calling cave diver a 'pedo guy'

"My words were spoken in anger after Mr. Unsworth said several untruths and suggested I engage in a sexual act with a mini-sub."

The ref is still in control.The World Cup showed how VAR will shape soccer's future

For the first time ever, FIFA used the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) at its flagship competition. And the tech, for better or worse (depending on which team you cheered on), certainly made a mark.

The expanded version comes to PC, PS4 and Xbox One June 24th.'No Man's Sky Next' trailer previews upcoming multiplayer mode

This massive upgrade will introduce plenty of new features to the game, including multiplayer, new playable perspectives (both first person and third person), unlimited base building and command freighters.

A new challenger enters.Sonos Beam is now on sale for $399

When we reviewed Beam, we gave it a score of 85, given its excellent sound quality, solid price point and support for AirPlay 2. Unlike the Playbar and Playbase soundbars, this one has Amazon Alexa built in, which you can use to control your TV with your voice (Google Assistant support should arrive later).

Assimilation complete.Nest CEO steps down as the company joins Google's home division

In a joint interview with former Nest CEO Marwan Fawaz, Rishi Chandra, vice president of product management for Google's home and living room products, said that the combination would make it easier for Google to integrate some of its machine learning technology and artificial intelligence into Nest products.

The difficulty is knowing when the car and its underlying software are ready. Roborace is still pursuing its driverless race-car dream

Last week, on Friday the 13th, Roborace chose to run its self-driving Robocar in front of a frenzied crowd at England's Goodwood Festival of Speed. It was only the second time the team had demonstrated its futuristic vehicle publicly, following an unassisted lap in Paris roughly 13 months ago.

Here we go.Walmart might get into the crowded video-subscription business

A report from The Information suggests Walmart's war with Amazon could extend to subscription video streaming. That could take the form of an ad-supported option, and/or a paid service priced below the monthly charge for Amazon Prime, Netflix or Hulu.

Suggestions for navigation, itinerary, reminders and reservations.Google Assistant adds a snapshot of your daily agenda

The information you need, available at a glance.

But wait, there's more...

• World Cup tweets were viewed 115 billion times

• Podcast series 'The Butterfly Effect' explores tech's impact on the porn industry

• Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is now the richest person in recent history

• Republican congressman introduces bill to make net neutrality law

• Samsung's new LPDDR5 memory chip will make phones run faster and longer

• DeepMind, Elon Musk and others pledge not to make autonomous AI weapons

• Verizon stops activating 3G phones

• 'Emojiland' blends musical theater and existential angst

• Microsoft and Walmart form a digital alliance against Amazon

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