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March Madness 2023: How to Watch and Stream the Final Four on CBS

San Diego State takes on Florida Atlantic in the first Final Four game on Saturday, followed by UConn against Miami.

This March has been madder than most. We have arrived at the Final Four with neither a No. 1 nor a No. 2 nor a No. 3 seed left in the field. No. 4 UConn is the highest seed remaining, followed by a pair of No. 5 seeds in Miami and San Diego State. The Cinderella of this year’s dance is No. 9 Florida Atlanta. It’s the first Final Four appearance for every school other than UConn. The last time the Final Four featured three first-time participants was over 50 years ago in 1970.

Florida Atlantic faces San Diego State in the first game on Saturday at 6:09 p.m. ET (3:09 p.m. PT), with UConn and Miami in the nightcap scheduled to start at 8:49 p.m. ET (5:49 p.m. PT). Both games will be broadcast on CBS. Here’s everything you need to watch and livestream the Final Four on Saturday and the national championship game on Monday night.

Jordan Hawkins of the UConn Huskies prepares to shoot the ballJordan Hawkins of the UConn Huskies prepares to shoot the ball

Jordan Hawkins and the No. 4 UConn Huskies are the highest seed left in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images

What is the March Madness TV schedule?

The schedule and channels for the Final Four and national championship game are listed below (all times ET).

Saturday, April 1

  • No. 5 San Diego State vs. No. 9 Florida Atlantic, 6:09 p.m. on CBS
  • No. 4 UConn vs. No. 5 Miami (Florida), 8:49 p.m. on CBS

Monday, April 3

  • NCAA championship game: 9:20 p.m. on CBS

What does the March Madness bracket look like now?

Your bracket is certainly busted at this point, but if you want to see how the tournament has played out, the full, updated bracket can be found on the NCAA’s website

Which channel is broadcasting the Final Four?

The Final Four and national championship game will air on CBS and stream on Paramount Plus. 

Can I stream March Madness for free?

Go to the NCAA’s March Madness Live site or use its March Madness Live app and you’ll be able to watch games for free. You can watch March Madness Live on iOS and Android devices, along with Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV and Xbox. The app also supports AirPlay and Chromecast.

As with most things that are free, there’s a catch. Without proving you’re a pay-TV subscriber, you get only a three-hour preview, after which point you’ll need to log in to continue watching.

What are my other streaming options?

You can use a live TV streaming service to watch March Madness. Three of the five live TV streaming services offer the two channels needed to watch every tournament game, but keep in mind that not every service carries every local network, so check each one using the links below to make sure it carries CBS in your area.

You can also use Paramount Plus to watch the three remaining games that will be on CBS.

Paramount Plus, CNET

Paramount Plus costs $10 a month for its Premium plan and will show March Madness games broadcast on CBS, including the Final Four and national championship game. Read our Paramount Plus review.

Hulu

Hulu with Live TV costs $70 a month and includes CBS. Click the «View channels in your area» link on its welcome page to see which local channels are offered in your ZIP code. Read our Hulu with Live TV review.

Sarah Tew/CNET

YouTube TV costs $73 a month and includes CBS. Plug in your ZIP code on its welcome page to see which local networks are available in your area. Read our YouTube TV review.

DirecTV Stream

DirecTV Stream’s basic $75-a-month plan includes CBS. You can use its channel lookup tool to see which local channels are available where you live. Read our DirecTV Stream review.

Fubo TV

FuboTV’s basic plan costs $75 a month and includes CBS. Click here to see which local channels you get. Read our FuboTV review.

All the live TV streaming services above offer free trials, allow you to cancel anytime and require a solid internet connection. Looking for more information? Check out our live TV streaming services guide.

Technologies

The Messenger Reinvented: How Verum Is Expanding the Boundaries of Digital Communication

The Messenger Reinvented: How Verum Is Expanding the Boundaries of Digital Communication

For more than a decade, the global messaging landscape has been defined by a handful of dominant platforms. Despite incremental updates, the core experience has remained largely unchanged: text, media sharing, and voice or video calls layered on centralized infrastructure.

Yet a new category of messaging platforms is beginning to emerge — one that treats communication not as a standalone function, but as part of a broader digital ecosystem.

Verum Messenger is one of the more ambitious entrants in this space. Rather than competing solely on interface or speed, it is positioning itself as an integrated environment that combines communication, privacy infrastructure, connectivity, and financial tools within a single application.

Beyond Messaging: Feature Density as Strategy

At the surface level, Verum includes many of the features now expected in modern messaging platforms, such as an AI assistant embedded directly within conversations, scheduled message delivery, disappearing messages after being read, and the ability to edit sent messages.

But it extends further into behavioral transparency and control. Users can receive notifications when someone takes a screenshot, copies, or forwards their messages, while also having the ability to block screenshots entirely and prevent screen recording. These controls are complemented by granular privacy settings, pinned messages, smart notification prioritization, message reactions and quick replies, customizable chat interfaces, and advanced notification controls.

Privacy as Infrastructure, Not Feature

Where Verum attempts to differentiate more aggressively is in its security architecture. The platform incorporates end-to-end encryption across all communications, including encrypted voice and video calls, along with automatic message deletion timers.

Account-level control is also emphasized through one-tap account deletion, restricted chat access, and active session management. Personal data protection is reinforced by storing security keys exclusively on the user’s device and implementing a multi-layered security model.

Additional safeguards include advanced privacy configuration, biometric authentication such as Face ID or Touch ID, passcode-based app locking, protection against unauthorized access, and dedicated private communication modes.

A Built-In Digital Layer

One of the platform’s more distinctive elements is its attempt to consolidate multiple digital services into a single environment.

This includes an integrated VPN, disposable anonymous email addresses, and built-in eSIM functionality, enabling connectivity across more than 150 countries. The application is designed to unify multiple services while supporting international communication, large file transfers, and group chats of up to 10,000 participants.

These are complemented by broader communication tools and an overarching goal of functioning as a centralized hub for managing digital interactions.

Financial Integration Without Fragmentation

In parallel, Verum incorporates a set of financial utilities that aim to reduce reliance on external applications. These include peer-to-peer transfers in fiat currencies, in-app balance top-ups, and a virtual payment card.

Support for Apple Pay and similar services is intended to streamline transactions, while built-in financial management tools suggest a move toward embedding everyday financial activity directly within the messaging layer.

Toward Network Independence

Perhaps the most forward-looking aspect of the platform lies in its recent technical developments.

Verum has introduced messaging capabilities that function without a traditional internet connection, relying instead on direct peer-to-peer communication between devices. This architecture reduces dependence on centralized servers, aligning with a broader industry trend toward decentralization and resilience.

At the same time, the platform incorporates on-device message translation, supporting dozens of languages with local processing. By avoiding cloud-based translation, this approach attempts to preserve user privacy while enabling cross-language communication.

A Broader Industry Signal

Whether Verum itself achieves mainstream adoption remains an open question. Network effects continue to favor established players, and feature breadth alone does not guarantee user migration.

However, the platform illustrates a broader shift in how messaging applications are being conceptualized. Increasingly, they are evolving into multi-functional environments that combine communication, privacy infrastructure, connectivity, and financial interaction.

In that context, Verum is less a direct competitor to existing messengers and more an early example of what a fully integrated digital platform might look like — one where messaging is no longer the product, but the foundation.

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Technologies

YouTube Will Let You Turn Off Shorts, but Only on Mobile

You can set a timer for bedtime or breaks, or just get rid of Shorts once and for all.

You can stop scrolling: YouTube just gave iOS and Android users the power to turn YouTube Shorts off completely. 

YouTube’s short-form videos are similar to TikTok and Instagram Reels. The videos are designed to be quick bursts of content, but can lead to more screen time than you may have initially intended. YouTube is rolling out a solution, at least for those who use the YouTube mobile app.

The YouTube Shorts Timer lets you set how much time you want to spend watching YouTube Shorts. Or you can set the timer to zero to stop seeing YouTube Shorts altogether. Google has instructions to disable Shorts or enable the timer in the YouTube app. You can limit your Shorts scrolling session to 15, 30 or 45 minutes, or for an hour or two. When the timer is up, you’ll see a message that you’ve reached your set time limit, but you can dismiss it. Google also says you can set reminders for bedtime and breaks.

The ability to set the timer to zero minutes isn’t available for everyone yet. A Google spokesperson told CNET that the feature was made available first to parents linked to supervised accounts. It’s still rolling out to all other users.

As a parent, I’m relieved to know parents now have more control over screen time through Google’s Family Link, an app and website for Google and YouTube parental controls. It also makes me wonder what other screen-time controls could be on the horizon. 

YouTube did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

A recent Pew Research Center study of teens who use TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram found that their screen time on these social media apps affects their sleep and productivity. Meanwhile, teens are using these apps for entertainment and say that the apps help their friendships — which could be important for teens. However, parental controls, app settings and other timers, like Brick, could help if you’re consistent and set schedules to have screen time without impeding on your time to rest or complete other tasks. 

Last month, a California jury found YouTube and Instagram’s respective parent companies liable in a landmark civil case brought by a woman who claimed the apps were designed to be addictive to children. YouTube owner Google has said the platform is a streaming service, not a social media site, and plans to appeal.

YouTube says parents can use the timer to control how much time teens spend watching Shorts, including setting reminders for bedtime and breaks. Or parents can turn off Shorts in the YouTube mobile app by setting the timer to 0 minutes.

The feature is only available for mobile, so Shorts can’t yet be disabled on desktop. TikTok rolled out new time-management features last year, including a positive affirmations journal and missions to earn badges for reducing screen time. 

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Technologies

MacOS Now Has a Native Gemini AI App

Get faster access to some of Gemini’s best features without switching tabs.

Gemini is getting a native MacOS app so that you have a faster way to talk to Google’s AI chatbot, bringing access to some of its best features with just a couple of clicks. 

Artificial intelligence is becoming more ingrained in everyday life, and companies are trying to make it easier than ever to access. On smartphones, AI is already just a button press away, but for desktops, LLMs like Google’s Gemini have been restricted to web applications. 

With the new app, Gemini is available via a simple keyboard shortcut. 

If you’ve got a MacBook, you can access Gemini at any time by pressing Option and Space on the keyboard, without having to switch tabs or open another window. 

Gemini’s best features, like Nano Banana image generation, video and music generation, are also just a few clicks away.

Much like you can do with the Gemini mobile app, the new MacOS app will let you share context from a window instantly so you can get insight on the content you’re viewing. Google says this will also work with local files on your computer and isn’t limited to web pages. 

The free, native app is available now for all users on MacOS 15 and up. Google says this is just the beginning and that it’s building the foundation for a «personal, proactive and powerful desktop assistant.» 

The app can be downloaded at gemini.google/mac.

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