Your smart home is only as smart as the network that runs it.On Sunday, some Google users found themselves locked out of YouTube and Gmail as the tech giant experienced major outages across the U.S. But while the service disruption only affected most users’ browsing history, others saw their homes malfunction. Nest, a Google-owned smart home company, was also affected by the outage. For Nest users, that meant losing access to smart thermostats, smart baby monitors, and smart front doors.They might seem like a plot device in a heavy-handed sci-fi movie, but smart home glitches are an inevitability as more people invite digital helpers into their homes.“Can't use my Nest lock to let guests into my house,” a commenter on the tech forum Hacker News wrote on Sunday. “I'm pretty sure their infrastructure is hosted in Google Cloud.”The commenter, StanfordKid, had been trying to use Nest to unlock his door for guests while he was away. In theory, the software is safer than leaving the keys under a doormat. Unless Google is down—then the smart home device loses its brain.StanfordKid wasn’t the only Nest user locked out of his devices on Sunday. Nest also makes smart smoke detectors, smart camera systems, and smart thermostats, some of which were reported useless during the four-hour outage. (Nest did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)For gaming YouTuber jDantastic, that meant a thermostat that wouldn’t work wirelessly because the Nest app was down, he tweeted. (He acknowledged that the inconvenience was relatively minor, as the thermostat had a manual override.) Another Twitter user said he lost access to his baby monitors.“It’s very inconvenient when the system is down,” TheBigWax tweeted at Nest. “Especially if you use Nest Cameras for baby monitors. Is the outage expected to end soon? Sometimes I wish I just got simple baby monitors instead of paying a premium price and a monthly fee for an inconsistent service.”But “simple” devices of old are often on their way out, replaced by their always-online counterparts. These web-enabled products form what’s known as the “Internet of Things,” a network of gadgets connected to the internet, sometimes for almost no discernible purpose. Dubious usefulness aside, these smart products are making moves on their analogue counterparts, sometimes with major Silicon Valley backing.Take the Juicero. A $400 juice machine that raised more than $118 million in funding (including funding from Google Ventures), Juicero promised an unparalleled fruit juice experience by syncing to the internet to perform minor tasks like confirming that its proprietary juice packets hadn’t been recalled. The juicer didn’t work unless it was connected to the internet, although savvy users soon found a workaround: they could make juice by squeezing Juicero packets with their hands. The company went out of business soon after Bloomberg revealed the manual hack.Undeterred, other companies have tried selling internet-dependent beverage accessories. Ember, a temperature-controlled coffee mug ($99.95-$149.95), needs regular software updates and a smartphone connection.And unlike a $5 coffee mug, glitches sometimes render these homegoods unusable. When Europe adopted new privacy laws, some web-enabled light bulbs announced that, due to their new privacy policy, they would no longer turn on, according to the popular Twitter account “Internet of Shit.”Sometimes clunky tech even becomes a human rights issue. In May, elderly residents in a Manhattan apartment building won a settlement in a lawsuit against landlords who installed smartphone-enabled smart locks in the building. Some residents, including a 93-year-old, said they almost never left home after the locks were installed, because they did not own smartphones. Others objected to an 84-page smart lock contract that surrendered all the residents’ smart lock data to the landlords.“It’s a form of harassment,” resident Beth McKenzie told the New York Post. “What happens if your phone dies? I don’t want to be stuck on the street and I don’t want to be surveilled.”In extreme cases, the Internet of Things can cause internet outages of its own. The devices, which often have shoddy security, are prime hacking targets. On multiple occasions, hackers have wrangled huge networks of home devices and turned them into botnets capable of breaking the internet.In October 2016, a huge distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack knocked out large sections of the internet on the East Coast. Originally thought to be the work of hostile state hackers, the culprits turned out to be a group of teens. The attackers had used closed circuit television cameras, not too different from Nest’s home cameras, to spam the internet to its breaking point.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

With WWDC 2019 finally upon us, Apple is at long last ready to reveal all of the software refinements, improvements, and new features it's been working on for the last year. As in previous years, Apple at WWDC will introduce notable updates across the entirety of its software line, including tvOS, watchOS, macOS, and of course, iOS. Apple's WWDC keynote kicked off not too long ago, and we've already seen some intriguing updates regarding tvOS, watchOS, and of course, a number of iOS improvements -- including Dark Mode -- designed to enhance the user experience across the board. Per usual, though, Apple had a few tricks up its sleeve. Just a few moments ago, Apple introduced iPadOS, a completely rethought OS to enhance the entirety of the iPad user experience. The overarching benefits of iPadOS is that it brings the iPad user experience that much closer towards a traditional desktop experience. In short, users with iPadOS will have more control and flexibility than ever before. The homescreen on the iPad with iPadOS looks similar but the alignment of icons is a bit more condensed. If you swipe to the right, you're presented with a view of useful widgets. Some other new features include a column view for Files, iCloud drive folder sharing, USB drive and SD card support, improved text editing, and desktop-class browsing to Safari which includes 30 new keyboard shortcuts and a download manager. To the latter point, browsing the web on mobile Safari on the web will yield a desktop version of a site, not a stripped down mobile version. A look at the homescreen with the widget view open can be seen below. Apple also introduced multi-window support from within applications, > iPad users can now work with multiple files and documents from the same app simultaneously with updates to Split View, or can quickly view and switch between multiple apps in Slide Over. For example, customers can compose an email while viewing another email side by side or access multiple apps like Messages or Calendar with just a swipe. App Exposé provides a quick view of just the open windows for any one app with a simple tap.Regarding the revamped Files app, Apple notes: > The Files app is a central place to quickly access and manage documents, and with iPadOS, it gets even better with iCloud Drive support for folder sharing. Anyone with access to a shared folder will see it in iCloud Drive and will always have the ability to access the latest version. iPadOS also supports external drives, allowing users to easily plug in USB drives, SD cards or log into an SMB file server, all from within the Files app. A new Column View with high-resolution previews helps users navigate directories, while support for Quick Actions such as mark up, rotate and create PDF make it easy to be more productive on iPad. iPadOS also introduces local storage, zip and unzip, and new keyboard shortcuts.There are also some welcome UI additions when it comes to selecting text, navigating through a long document, and cut, copy, and paste actions.

Here at Scouted, we love sharing all the myriad kitchen upgrades and improvements we come across. That means getting the word out that the No.1 best selling pressure cooker on Amazon — the three-quart Instant Pot DUO Plus Mini 9-in-1 — is on sale today only for $55 (39% off). How To Make Your Kitchen Better, From Knives to Pots and PansWe haven’t seen a discount like this since late 2018 so it’s certainly a rare opportunity to get such a lauded kitchen upgrade at such an affordable price. Nearly 38,000 reviewers left the compact Instant Pot a 4.6-star average rating. From speeding up any kind of cooking with pressure to slow cooking, steaming, sauteeing, sterilizing, or simply keeping food warm, this stainless steel marvel is a Scouted reader favorite. The Instant Pot's display will, of course, keep you updated on cooking timers and pressure options but also lets you easily choose any of several preset cooking options that automatically adjust heat and pressure during the process so all you have to concern yourself with is the meal-to-come. And cleaning is a breeze as the stainless steel pot you cook in can be lifted right out of the base and cleaned. Wondering what options for cooking open up to you with an Instant Pot? We’ve got you covered with a guide to the most highly-rated Instant Pot cookbooks. This sale ends tonight and the price will nearly double so don’t wait long to grab these savings. Scouted is internet shopping with a pulse. Follow us on Twitter and sign up for our newsletter for even more recommendations and exclusive content. Please note that if you buy something featured in one of our posts, The Daily Beast may collect a share of sales.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Here at Scouted, we love sharing all the myriad kitchen upgrades and improvements we come across. That means getting the word out that the No.1 best selling pressure cooker on Amazon — the three-quart Instant Pot DUO Plus Mini 9-in-1 — is on sale today only for $55 (39% off). How To Make Your Kitchen Better, From Knives to Pots and PansWe haven’t seen a discount like this since late 2018 so it’s certainly a rare opportunity to get such a lauded kitchen upgrade at such an affordable price. Nearly 38,000 reviewers left the compact Instant Pot a 4.6-star average rating. From speeding up any kind of cooking with pressure to slow cooking, steaming, sauteeing, sterilizing, or simply keeping food warm, this stainless steel marvel is a Scouted reader favorite. The Instant Pot's display will, of course, keep you updated on cooking timers and pressure options but also lets you easily choose any of several preset cooking options that automatically adjust heat and pressure during the process so all you have to concern yourself with is the meal-to-come. And cleaning is a breeze as the stainless steel pot you cook in can be lifted right out of the base and cleaned. Wondering what options for cooking open up to you with an Instant Pot? We’ve got you covered with a guide to the most highly-rated Instant Pot cookbooks. This sale ends tonight and the price will nearly double so don’t wait long to grab these savings. Scouted is internet shopping with a pulse. Follow us on Twitter and sign up for our newsletter for even more recommendations and exclusive content. Please note that if you buy something featured in one of our posts, The Daily Beast may collect a share of sales.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.