Category: The Verge

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Amazon just wrapped up its fall hardware event, and it was packed with a number of big announcements. There are a number of new Echo devices, such as a spherical redesign of the tried-and-true Echo. Amazon also showed off improvements for Alexa, including new security features. We saw a bunch of new Ring devices — one of which was a drone that can autonomously fly around inside your home. And Amazon finally took the wraps off its long-rumored cloud gaming service, Luna.

If you want the play-by-play, check out our live blog with commentary from Dieter Bohn and Nilay Patel. And if you want the rundown of the biggest news from the show, check it out right here:

Amazon showed off a new, spherical Echo, Echo Dot, and Echo Dot…

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Image: Amazon

Amazon announced a load of new devices today at its hardware event, as expected. The new Echo Show 10 smart display, shown above, that can follow your movements around the room and Ring’s new Always Home Cam drone are just a sampling. And now, we found out when you can buy them and how much they’ll cost. We’ll be reviewing most, if not all, of these products before they make their way onto store shelves, but if you want to place an order ahead of time, here are the links.

If Amazon’s Prime Day 2020 goes on in mid-October, as is rumored, it’s possible that we’ll see a few of these products at a lower price. Not all of them will have released by then, but it’s good to at least keep in mind.

We’ll add more links for the Ring products…

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Amazon

Amazon has debuted the $129.99 Eero 6 and the $229.99 Eero Pro 6 mesh Wi-Fi routers, along with the $89.99 Eero 6 extender that support Wi-Fi 6 and Zigbee. Following leaks from earlier in September, the Eero Pro 6 improves on its predecessor with support for Wi-Fi 6, which delivers faster speeds and support for more devices connected simultaneously. Similarly, the Pro 6 is a tri-band router that offers a single band for tech that connects via 2.4GHz and two bands for 5GHz to allow more devices to connect at the fastest speeds. The Eero 6 is a dual-band device.

The Eero 6 and Pro 6 looks like a hybrid between the older Pro and Eero’s more affordable mesh Wi-Fi system. Both appear to have a slightly more bulbous design. As far as specs go,…

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The new Amazon Echo Show 10 in white | Photo: Amazon

The latest Alexa-powered smart display isn’t content with sitting still

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Fans of Amazon’s Echo Show smart speakers will be glad to know that the company is finally adding Netflix capabilities to the device. Although Echo Show users were previously able to watch networks such as Hulu and Prime Video, the absence of the popular Netflix service could be frustrating for movie enthusiasts. Now, with the new Echo Show 10, that particular problem has been solved.

According to Amazon, you will be able to use your voice to search for and start Netflix shows or movies on the Echo Show’s 10-inch screen. And if you’re cleaning the house, cooking, or otherwise busy while your Netflix video is playing, don’t worry about it. The Echo Show 10’s motorized screen will, by using computer vision technology and echolocation, move…

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Image: Amazon

Amazon has announced its latest video streaming devices for the TV: today, the company introduced an upgraded, more powerful Fire TV Stick for the same $39.99 price. But Amazon is getting even more aggressive on price with the launch of the new Fire TV Stick Lite at just $29.99, which it claims is the “most powerful” streaming device for under $30. Both are capable of HD-quality streaming; the regular Stick can output expanded HDR color, but the Lite version cannot. Both will be released on September 30th.

The standard Fire TV Stick will be faster at the Lite at launching apps and starting streams. Another difference is that the Fire TV Stick’s remote has volume and mute controls for your TV, while the Lite’s doesn’t. However, both offer…

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

What seems to be an Amazon-made game controller has appeared in FCC filings (credit to Dave Zatz for spotting this first). While an Amazon-made gaming controller would be interesting on its own, these filings have been published shortly before the company’s next annual hardware event, which kicks off at 1PM ET today, suggesting Amazon could finally be revealing more about its long-rumored Project Tempo cloud gaming service very soon.

It’s difficult to glean much about the controller from the filings — I can see that the controller will support Bluetooth and both 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi protocols, but I can’t find any pictures of what the device might look like. And the only real tip-off we have that this is an Amazon device is the…

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Amazon’s Spheres | Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge

Alexa, show me some hardware

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Image: JerryRigEverything

LG’s Wing — with its rotating dual-display system — is one of 2020’s most interesting-looking smartphones. And thanks to YouTuber JerryRigEverything’s teardown of the device, we now know just how LG managed to make that swiveling screen a reality.

It’s actually pretty wild: there’s a hole cut through the printed circle board (PCB) and the main frame of the phone, which has a flexible ribbon cable threaded through it to allow the rotating main display to both function and twist around. There’s also a tiny hydraulic damper to serve as a shock-absorbing cushion for when you flip the phone open.

Image: JerryRigEverything

The actual hinge mechanism…

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This could be a green Pixel 5 sitting next to a Nest Audio speaker and the new Chromecast remote | WinFuture

The Google Pixel 5 is rumored to launch in a new green color (green-ish? green-like?) in addition to black, but you don’t have to wait until later this month to see what that will look like. That very configuration of Google’s upcoming flagship phone seems to be laid bare in a leaked marketing shot, spotted by WinFuture (via 9to5Google). The phone is face-down on its screen, leaving its rear fingerprint sensor and all-plastic back visible, and both details line up with the rumors so far.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, given how much Google tech tends to leak, this image also serves up yet another look at Google’s Nest Audio smart speaker and its new Chromecast running the refreshed Google TV interface. Both products were recently spotted at…

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The new smartwatch has a battery life of up to 45 days. | Image: Mobvoi

The TicWatch Pro 3 is the latest smartwatch from Mobvoi and the first Wear OS smartwatch to use Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon Wear 4100, which promises faster performance and better battery life. The new smartwatch also adds the ability to track blood oxygen levels, features apps like TicZen stress monitoring, and has a slimmer design. It’s available starting today for $299.99 (£289.99 / €299.99).

The Pro 3’s standout spec is the Snapdragon Wear 4100 processor, which is the first major update Qualcomm has made to its wearable chipset since 2018’s Wear 3100. According to Qualcomm, the new chipset’s CPU and memory is 85 percent faster, its GPU is 2.5 times faster, and it consumes around 25 percent less power. Mobvoi has paired the chip with…

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Photo: Riot Games

The 2020 edition of the League of Legends World Championship is about to begin in Shanghai — and it’s a lot to take in. The annual competition, colloquially known simply as Worlds, spans more than a month, with 22 teams from across the globe all vying for a chance to lift the coveted (and imposing) Summoner’s Cup. If you’re new to the game or don’t follow that closely, it can be confusing to jump in.

So in order to help you get the most out of the experience, we’ve prepared this handy guide to Worlds. See you out on the rift.

Just what is Worlds?

The name is pretty self-explanatory. Worlds is a tournament that pits the best professional teams from various regional leagues against each other to see which is the best on the planet. Think…

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From budget to 4K, here are the best projectors to replace your TV

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PUBG Mobile is adding a new song from K-pop band Blackpink to its lobby. Players can listen to the band’s single “How You Like That” ahead of their upcoming album release. The song will be available in-game from September 24th through October 2nd.

PUBG’s developers are also adding Blackpink-themed items and more to appear in-game. Additionally, players who send the most gifts to the K-pop idols, whose IDs will be revealed on social media, will get rewards from the band. Some outfits, including the Adorable Panda Suit and Killer Cadet Set, will be available permanently to players who win them.

K-pop band BTS recently made its own appearance in Fortnite with their single “Dynamite.”

PUBG Mobile, released in 2018, is one of the world’s…

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Apple’s eighth-generation iPad is $299 at Amazon, which is $30 less than its retail price. Needless to say, it’s a good deal if you were in the market for one of these. If you want 128GB of storage instead of 32GB that comes by default, you’ll need to pay more — but that pricier model is also less than it usually costs. It’s $395 instead of $429. Best of all, Amazon has all colors available at a discount (silver, space gray, and gold), though the waiting times for delivery vary depending on which one you want. At the time of publishing, the longest-possible wait is four weeks.

In case you haven’t been keeping tabs on the iPad generations, this one just released last week. It’s the same overall design of the previous model, but the…

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Credit: OnePlus

The upcoming OnePlus 8T will support 65W fast charging via the company’s new Warp Charge 65 standard, OnePlus confirmed today. The company is advertising that you’ll be able to get “a day’s power in 15 minutes” using the new technology, and it specifically says a 15-minute charge will restore 58 percent of the battery’s power, with a full charge of the phone’s 4,500mAh battery taking just 39 minutes.

Faster charging speeds tend to mean more heat generation, but OnePlus says the 8T features a “new heat dissipation system” to keep it cool while it charges. The phone apparently has 12 temperature sensors to keep an eye on how hot the handset gets. There’s no mention of whether the OnePlus 8T will support wireless charging, however.

65W fast…

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Photo by Gene Wang/Getty Images

Ava Max is holding an album launch party in an unexpected place: the virtual realm of Roblox. The pop star will be part of what’s described as “a first-of-its-kind immersive album launch party and virtual fan meetup” to celebrate the release of her new album Heaven & Hell.

It will feature a variety of events, including a Q&A with the artist, a performance of some new songs, a merch store, and in-game quests. The whole thing will take place in a virtual space described as a “sky-high dance floor,” which you can see in the gallery below. “I just can’t wait to meet my fans on Roblox this Friday,” Max said in a statement. “I miss being able to interact with everyone in person, and I’m really excited to try this new way of connecting with…

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Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Amazon is gearing up for its latest hardware event where it’s expected to announce its latest smart home gear. Based on prior years, we could see new Echo speakers, Alexa updates, Eero routers, Ring cameras, and more.

But looking at Amazon’s smart home lineup right now, the question isn’t whether Amazon will have new hardware to show off. It’s whether Amazon can convince its current customers to buy them.

Look at the current slate of Echos or Eeros, for example. They’re already excellent products. Smart home gear has a much longer lifespan than, say, a laptop or a smartphone, where leaps in design and new features are far more apparent. So how do you convince someone that their smart speaker needs an upgrade without a new screen or…

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The images show a similar looking device to the Pixel 4A, but there’s a 5G logo in the status bar. | Image: John Lewis

UK retailer John Lewis has accidentally posted images of Google’s Pixel 4A 5G a little early, giving us a detailed look at the new mid-range phone’s design. The images, fist spotted by 9to5Google, are accidentally on display on the retailer’s Pixel 4A 4G LTE listing, where they show a 5G logo in the phone’s status bar and a rear camera layout that doesn’t match the Pixel 4A’s. The images confirm several of the Pixel 4A 5G specs that leaked yesterday, including a second rear camera and the headphone jack that carries over from the Pixel 4A.

The Pixel 4A 5G is one of the two phones Google pre-announced for this fall, the other one being the Pixel 5. Recent leaks for the two devices claim the Pixel 4A 5G’s specs will position it somewhere…

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Mac and iOS calendar app Fantastical has updated its software with 12 new customizable widgets. They look like the perfect use-case for iOS 14’s widget support, giving users access to their calendar, events, and weather forecasts straight from the home screen.

These aren’t the sort of widgets you’d use to flex on TikTok, of course: these are practical and straightforward designs for people whose live in their schedules. The widgets look as well-designed as you’d expect from Fantastical, and we particularly like the option to jump into meetings directly. No more searching your inbox for that elusive Zoom invitation.

Fantastical’s widgets are all hypothetically free to use, but some features (like quick-joining meetings and multiple…

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