Amazon’s first-gen Echo Buds are just $40 now at Woot

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Truly wireless earbuds vary wildly in price, but if you’re looking to save money today, check out Woot’s deal on the first-gen Echo Buds from Amazon. These debuted in 2019 for $129, and while they’ve since been succeeded by an even better model, it’ll be hard to beat their current $40 price at Woot. This low cost is for a new set with a full one-year manufacturer warranty.

The Echo Buds raised the bar in terms of what kind of sound quality you should expect from truly wireless earbuds in the $100-$120 price range. While they lack active noise cancellation like the newer model, their Bose active noise reduction tech should hush some sounds in your environment. Read our review.

Super Mario 3D All-Stars for the Nintendo Switch is over 30...

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Meet Nokia G300, the $199 5G phone for Tracfone and Straight Talk customers

The Nokia G300 is a 5G-enabled phone with a 6.52-inch LCD and 4,470mAH battery. | HMD Global

Why should postpaid mobile customers have all the 5G fun? HMD Global, the manufacturer behind new Nokia phones, is announcing its most affordable 5G phone yet for Tracfone and Straight Talk Wireless’ prepaid customers — the Nokia G300.

Like T-Mobile’s $199 REVVL V Plus 5G, the Nokia G300 doesn’t try to wow you with flagship-level specs but offers the bread-and-butter features you’ll care about at an affordable price.

One of the most useful features of the G300 is its fingerprint scanner. It is integrated with the power button so that you can inconspicuously unlock your phone while pressing the same button to wake it up. Of course, you can also use your face to unlock the device.

It has a reasonably large 4,470mAh battery, which Nokia...

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Ecobee’s smart thermostat is the first to have Siri voice control built-in

Siri can now be set as the default voice assistant in the Ecobee SmartThermostat. | Image: Ecobee

First announced at Apple’s WWDC earlier this year, Siri has now landed on Ecobee SmartThermostats. The Apple voice assistant arrives via a free software update allowing you to say “Hey Siri” to the thermostat to set the temperature, send an intercom message, and use all of Siri’s smart speaker features.

This is the first third-party device to include Apple’s virtual assistant Siri, although the feature is not exclusive to Ecobee. Apple said that all HomeKit accessory makers will be able to integrate Siri voice control into their products starting this year. For any integration to work, you will need to have a HomePod Mini on the same network, through which the device (in this case the SmartThermostat) will send the requests.

The...

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Netgear’s new mesh Wi-Fi 6E router costs $1,500

Netgear launches the first quad band Wi-Fi 6E mesh system.

Just when you were starting to think about upgrading to a Wi-Fi 6 router, Wi-Fi 6E is here. And it’s expensive. Netgear announced its newest entry into the 6E foray today, the Orbi Quad-B and Mesh WiFi 6E RBKE960 series. This is the first quad-band Wi-Fi 6E mesh offering, but not the first Wi-Fi 6E mesh router (the $1,200 Linksys Atlas Max 6E took that honor earlier this year). Featuring a 2.4 GHz band, two 5GHz, and a brand spanking new 6GHz band, this $1,500 system also supports four different networks out of the box, including one designed exclusively for your insecure smart home devices. And if that doesn’t get you excited, they’re also releasing a limited-edition color… black.

Image: Netgear

The new Orbi...

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These apps let you customize Windows 11 to bring the taskbar back to life

The Windows 11 taskbar. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

I’m not the only one who hates the new Windows 11 taskbar, and now third-party developers are coming to the rescue with apps that bring back some of the features missing in Microsoft’s latest OS.

Microsoft removed basic taskbar functionality in Windows 11, like displaying the time and date on multiple monitors, moving the taskbar to the top of the screen or sides, and even small things like altering its height and having small icons. It has angered many Windows users, and most of the top feedback in Microsoft’s Windows Insider program was related to the taskbar changes before Windows 11 debuted last week.

Stardock is releasing Start11 today, which offers a lot of customization for the Windows 11 Start menu and taskbar h...

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This bipedal robot uses propeller arms to slackline and skateboard

LEONARDO can fly and walk thanks to bipedal legs and propeller arms. | Image: Caltech Aerospace Robotics and Control Lab / Science Robotics

When it comes to judging how cool robots are, I deploy a simple but reliable heuristic: can I imagine this machine appearing in the Metal Gear Solid franchise? With LEONARDO, a bipedal robot with propellers for arms, I can not only imagine it, I’m pretty sure it is in MGSV. From the bubble head to the uncannily precise movements, it’s just a very cool robot, which I can also imagine being used to infiltrate mercenary basecamps.

Just like a bird, LEONARDO can both walk and fly

LEONARDO is a pleasingly choppy acronym for “LEgs ONboARD drOne” — the product of those linguistic geniuses in Caltech’s Aerospace Robotics and Control Lab. You may have seen an earlier iteration of the bot back in 2019 (when, amazingly, LEONARDO stood for “LEg ON...

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US PC market declines due to supply issues just as Windows 11 launches

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The US PC market has declined during the recent quarter, due to pandemic-related supply issues. It’s the first time the US PC market has declined since the pandemic began causing lots of people to rush out and buy new PCs over the past 18 months. Overall, Gartner and IDC analysis both suggest the worldwide PC market grew in Q3, but at a slower rate than we’ve seen during the pandemic.

Gartner says “consumer and educational spending began to shift away from PCs to other priorities,” during the quarter, leading to less demand for PCs. That’s illustrated best by a 17 percent drop in Chromebook shipments, which Gartner has included in its traditional PC shipments for the first time ever this quarter. Both IDC and Gartner report 84.1 million...

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8BitDo’s Xbox media remotes are cute and cheap

The white version of the 8BitDo Media Remote for Xbox is very compact.

For some reason, Microsoft doesn’t make a media remote for its Xbox Series consoles. There was a first-party option for the Xbox One, which should work well enough with the S and X (as most Xbox One accessories do), but it appears to have been discontinued. Perhaps it’s a casualty of Microsoft’s more recent focus on gaming over TV and entertainment.

Anyway, here’s renowned controller maker 8BitDo with a couple of officially licensed remotes designed for the new Series consoles. I’ve been using them with my Series X and One X, and I’ve found they do a good job at an affordable price, as long as they’ll work with your setup.

There are two versions of the Media Remote for Xbox, as 8BitDo calls it: a $24.99 “Long Edition” black model with a...

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Google says it’s dropping Material Design components on iOS in favor of Apple’s UIKit

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google is phasing out its use of Material Design user interface components for its iOS apps in favor of leaning more on Apple’s own UIKit. The company says the result of the switch should be less work for its iOS development team, but, more importantly, it’s likely the change will mean that Google’s iOS apps will feel less like interlopers on Apple devices. Instead of obeying Android’s UI conventions, they should look and feel more like they belong on iOS.

The change was announced on Twitter by Jeff Verkoeyen, engineer lead for Google Design on Apple’s platforms. I recommend reading the full thread if you’re interested, but Verkoeyen says his team “shifted the open source Material components libraries for iOS into maintenance mode”...

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Microsoft says it mitigated the largest DDoS attack ever recorded

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft says it was able to mitigate a 2.4 terabytes per second (Tbps) Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack in August. The attack targeted an Azure customer in Europe, and was 140 percent higher than the highest attack bandwidth volume Microsoft recorded in 2020. It also exceeds the peak traffic volume of 2.3Tbps, the previous largest attack, which was directed at Amazon Web Services last year.

Microsoft says the attack lasted more than 10 minutes, with short-lived bursts of traffic that peaked at 2.4Tbps, 0.55Tbps, and finally 1.7Tbps. DDoS attacks are typically used to force websites or services offline, thanks to a flood of traffic that a web host can’t handle. They’re usually performed through a botnet, a network of machines...

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Tile refreshes its Mate, Pro, Slim, and Sticker trackers with better range, louder volume, and improved water resistance

The new Tile Pro, Tile Slim, and Tile Sticker trackers | Image: Tile

Tile is refreshing its entire product lineup today with brand new hardware for its Tile Mate, Tile Pro, Tile Slim, and Tile Sticker Bluetooth trackers. All four trackers are getting sleeker, updated designs, with improvements to both tracking range, volume, and water resistance.

The regular $24.99 Tile Mate is getting its biggest change in years, with a more rounded shape and design and a new black color option (in addition to the standard white). Range is being increased from 200 feet to 250 feet, the volume of the ring is now louder when you’re trying to locate it, and the water resistance has been upgraded to an IP67 rating.

Battery life is also longer on the new Mate — three years, instead of the single year offered on the previous...

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The Tile Ultra takes on AirTags with UWB-powered AR tracking, coming early 2022

Tile has officially announced its first ultra-wideband (UWB) tracking tag, the Tile Ultra, coming in 2022 and which Tile claims is the first tracking tag from any company to offer UWB support on both Android and iOS.

Tile isn’t giving any information on price or a release date beyond “early 2022,” but it did provide an early preview of what the Ultra will look like and how it’ll work. From the outside, the Ultra looks similar to the newly updated Tile Pro, with a rounded, rectangular shape and a built-in key ring.

But on the inside, in addition to using Bluetooth radios to leverage Tile’s network of devices to discover the rough location of an object, the Tile Ultra (similar to Apple’s AirTag and Samsung’s SmartTag Plus) can then use...

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Microsoft transforms the Windows Subsystem for Linux into a Windows 11 app

Microsoft has transformed the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) into an app that you can simply download and install from the Microsoft Store on Windows 11. A preview version of the app is available right now, allowing Windows 11 users to install Windows Subsystem for Linux without having to head into add / remove programs and selecting WSL as an optional inbox component for Windows.

This separate app will now be serviced through the store, which means Microsoft can update WSL independently from Windows, allowing WSL users to “get the latest WSL updates and features faster, and without needing to modify your Windows version.” While there are no new changes with this Store app version just yet, it does mean that future updates can appear...

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The first USB-C iPhone is here thanks to a mod

A USB-C port on an iPhone X. | Ken Pillonel (YouTube)

Apple hasn’t created a USB-C iPhone despite years of rumors, but that hasn’t stopped a robotics engineering student from creating one. Ken Pillonel has placed a working USB-C port inside an iPhone X, allowing the phone to charge and transfer data over USB-C instead of Lightning.

Pillonel has spent months on the project in his spare time, as spotted by Apple Insider, and opened up plenty of USB-C and Lightning cables to get to his final goal of a USB-C iPhone. Pillonel originally created a simple prototype in May that allowed an iPhone battery to be charged over the USB-C port. The proof of concept was rather large and didn’t fit inside an iPhone, so the next stage was to remove all the wires and squeeze it inside.

Ken...

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Instagram’s outages were so bad the app will now alert users when the service goes down

Instagram is testing a feature that will announce serious outages in users’ Activity Feed. | Image: Instagram

Instagram is testing a new feature that will alert users when the service is having major technical difficulties. The alert will appear as a notification in users’ Activity Feed when “people are confused and looking for answers,” says Instagram. In other words: when the app’s systems take a serious and prolonged nose-dive, as they did last week.

It’s a sensible feature from Instagram’s parent company Facebook, given the chaos that’s caused when its services go down. When Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram fail, people often wonder if there’s something wrong with their connection, their internet, or _their_account. A little notification telling users, “Don’t worry, it’s not you, it’s us” will probably save a lot of confusion in...

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The best deals on true wireless earbuds right now

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

When it comes to true wireless earbuds, there are a ton of brands and products to choose from. Whether you enjoy the unconventional design of Samsung’s Galaxy Buds Live or prefer Jabra’s compact Elite 75t, there’s a pair of wireless earbuds for just about everyone. Fortunately, many of the best wireless earbuds go on sale on a regular occurrence.

Regardless of which brand you prefer, we have compiled some of the best deals on wireless earbuds available right now. Of course, if you want to do more research before making a buying decision, we also encourage you to read our guide to the best wireless earbuds, which can help you determine which pair of earbuds are best for you.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge ...

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Samsung tries to prove its foldable phones are tough in a new test video

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Samsung is sharing new details about how it tests the durability of the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Z Flip 3. However, it’s unclear exactly why Samsung is releasing this information now, especially given that both phones launched in August; that makes us think it could be an attempt to assuage fears sparked by recent reports of cracks on Galaxy Z Flip 3 screens.

In a video posted on its website, Samsung shows four separate tests. One has the phones in an environmental chamber, where Samsung tests the phones under different climates to make sure they still work. Another test engulfs the phones in water. One uses a robot arm to test the performance of the S Pen on the Z Fold 3. A fourth test folds both phones over and over.

Samsung has shown off...

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Here are the best Kindle deals right now

The 2018 Kindle Paperwhite might not be the newest model, but it’s available for $35 off. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

When it comes to finding a device to use to read your ebooks, you have a few options to choose from. You can always buy a tablet or use your smartphone, but those devices are multipurpose and can be used for a ton of things, like surfing the web or doom-scrolling on Twitter. If you are looking for something to strictly read books, e-readers, while niche, are designed to store all of your books in a virtual library with limited functionality.

Amazon, having helped pioneer the e-reader, has dominated the space for years with its Kindle lineup, which consists of three unique models with their own pros and cons.

Below, we’ve listed each model currently available for purchase. Sometimes, there isn’t a deal for one, or any, of the products....

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Magic Leap somehow raised $500 million to make another AR headset

Magic Leap

Magic Leap has raised $500 million in funding and is preparing to release a new AR headset, the Magic Leap 2, next year, the company announced Monday. The headset will be generally available next year, the company said, and “select customers” are using it as part of an early access program.

CEO Peggy Johnson said in a statement that with the new funding “Magic Leap will have greater financial flexibility and the resources needed to continue our growth trajectory as we expand on our industry-leading AR technology.” She revealed the new device in an Monday appearance on CNBC.

@peggyj just revealed #MagicLeap2 on @CNBC - the industry’s smallest and lightest device. Built for enterprise, it is more immersive and comfortable, with the...

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HTC’s new Vive Flow headset reportedly launches this week

A promotional image for HTC’s upcoming event. | Image: Engage

HTC is planning to release a new VR headset this week and is also working on its own metaverse-like virtual world, according to a report from Protocol.

Let’s start first with that new headset. It’s reportedly a standalone VR headset called the Vive Flow and is intended to be a media consumption device “with access to some casual gaming,” Protocol says. However, it won’t ship with controllers and will be less powerful than the Oculus Quest 2, Protocol reports. The Vive Flow will reportedly be announced at HTC’s October 14th event, which would make sense, as HTC is promoting the event with the “Go with the Flow” tagline.

The new metaverse space is apparently called Viveport Verse. According to a site about the service (which was live as...

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Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen to speak to its Oversight Board

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen testified before Congress on October 5th. | Photo by Matt McClain-Pool/Getty Images

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen said Monday that she will speak to the platform’s independent Oversight Board at its invitation.

“I have accepted the invitation to brief the Facebook Oversight Board about what I learned while working there,” Haugen tweeted. “Facebook has lied to the board repeatedly, and I am looking forward to sharing the truth with them.”

Haugen, a former product manager in Facebook’s civic integrity group, leaked a large cache of internal Facebook documents to the Wall Street Journal showing problems within the organization.She appeared on 60 Minutes two days before she testified before Congress that Facebook “repeatedly” misled the public about “what its own research reveals about the safety of children and...

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Now every Twitter web user can ‘soft block’ annoying followers

All Twitter web users can now soft block followers. | Image: Twitter

Twitter is rolling out a new feature that lets any user on the web remove a follower without blocking them, an action also known as a “soft block.”

To soft block a follower, head to your profile, click followers, click the three-dot menu next to a follower, and then click the option “Remove this follower.” (You can see what that option looks like in an image from Twitter at the top of this post.) A follower you remove won’t be notified of the change.

A soft block is different from a block because it allows a user to still see your tweets and direct message you, but they won’t see your tweets on your feed. That said, when you remove a follower, they can follow you again if they want.

The new method is easier than the previous one

The...

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Amazon’s new work-from-home policy: let teams decide

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy sent an email to employees on Monday outlining a shift in work-from-home policies for its office workers. As of August, the plan had been for employees to return to the offices in January 2022, with the expectation being that workers spent three days a week in the office and two days a week remote. However, under the new policy announced Monday, Amazon lets individual teams decide how often their people need to come into the office.

Here’s Jassy’s explanation of the new policies and how they will work:

For our corporate roles, instead of specifying that people work a baseline of three days a week in the office, we’re going to leave this decision up to individual teams. This decision will be made team by team at the...

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The best deals on MacBooks right now

The 2020 MacBook Air, one of the best laptops you can get, is now available at Amazon starting at $850.

With multiple configurations and various models to choose from, including some equipped with Apple’s new M1 processor, finding a deal on a MacBook or Mac Mini is not all that difficult.

Here, we’ll run through the discounts that are currently available for the latest MacBook models, as well as any deals to be had on the Mac Mini. Of course, there are also frequent discounts available for older Intel-based configurations — which will be compatible with macOS Monterey upon its release later this year — and we’ll highlight those when we find them.

Alternatively, purchasing refurbished is another way to save money on an Apple computer. Apple’s refurbished store provides a one-year warranty on all products and generally has discounts of 15-...

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Netflix suspends trans employee who tweeted about Dave Chappelle special

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Netflix has suspended a trans employee who tweeted about Dave Chappelle’s comedy special The Closer. In the stand-up set, which was released on October 5th, Chappelle doubles down on his jokes about LGBTQ groups.

The next day, Netflix software engineer Terra Field tweeted about Chappelle, writing that the comedian “attacks the trans community, and the very validity of transness” in the special:

I work at @netflix. Yesterday we launched another Chappelle special where he attacks the trans community, and the very validity of transness - all while trying to pit us against other marginalized groups. You're going to hear a lot of talk about "offense".

We are not offended

— Terra Fied (@RainofTerra) October 7, 2021

The tweet thread...

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Apple releases iOS 15.0.2 with some Find My fixes

Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge

Apple released iOS 15.0.2 on Monday, and it has some important bug fixes, including a couple specific to Find My. On my iPhone 12 Mini, the update clocks in at 531.1MB.

Here are the patch notes from Apple:

This update includes bug fixes for your iPhone:

Photos saved to your library from Messages could be deleted after removing the associated thread or message

iPhone Leather Wallet with MagSafe may not connect to Find My

AirTag might not appear in the Find My Items tab

CarPlay may fail to open audio apps or disconnect during playback

Device restore or update may fail when using Finder or iTunes for iPhone 13 models

iPadOS 15.0.2 is also out. Here’s what’s included in that, according to 9to5Mac:

Photos saved to your library from...

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The best deals on 4K TVs

The Frame, Samsung’s art-like QLED TV, is on sale at Amazon right now for $1,398. | Samsung

There are a lot of 4K TVs available to choose from, complete with a wide variety of prices and performance. And, with many fall sales taking place, now might be the best time of the year to get an amazing TV deal. Even if your budget is less than $500, you can get a good 4K TV in a bigger size than you might expect. Whether you want a secondary TV for the bedroom or a high-end OLED that’s built for a cinema-like experience, we’ve picked out the best TV deals across four common categories:

• The best 4K TV deals for most people
• The best TV deals on a budget
• The best deals on OLED TVs
• 4K TVs for the PlayStation and Xbox Series X

We will provide regular updates to this post so be sure to check back periodically for the most up-to-date info...

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Amazfit’s long-lasting Zepp OS fitness watches like iPhones and Android equally

The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro, GTR 3, and GTS 3 series of Zepp OS-powered fashion fitness watches. | Image: Amazfit

Amazfit is launching three new long-lasting smart activity watches today: the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro, priced at $229.99 / €199.99, and the Amazfit GTR 3 and GTS 3, both priced at $179.99 / €149.99. The GTR 3 can go up to 21 days of typical usage before needing a recharge, the company claims, while the GTR 3 Pro and GTS 3 can last for about 12 days. They’ll go even longer if the battery saver modes are enabled.

Amazfit is the product brand owned by Zepp Health, previously known as Huami, a public company funded by Xiaomi. The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro, GTR 3, and GTS 3 watches all run Zepp OS, which plays nicely with both iOS / Apple Health and Android / Google Fit. They can also sync your health and activity data to Strava, Runkeeper, and others.

...

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Here are the best Amazon Echo deals right now

The Echo Show 5 (left), Echo Show 8 (middle), and the Echo Show (right). | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

When it comes to smart speakers, Amazon has a slew of voice-enabled Echo devices to choose from, one for practically every occasion. Maybe you want to add Alexa to a room, for example, or you’re looking for an Echo device that will allow you to easily manage your lighting or other smart home products. Regardless of the reason, these are the best Echo deals available right now.

The best Echo Dot deals

Last year, Amazon released the fourth generation of the Echo Dot, which looks more like a sphere than an actual dot. But if you prefer the previous design, don’t worry: Amazon has not discontinued the third-gen Echo Dot, which still retains the familiar dot shape.

We’ve recently seen the latest Echo Dot drop to an all-time low of $29, and...

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Facebook expands its Live Audio feature to more creators globally

Facebook’s Live Audio rooms feature is expanding globally | Facebook

Facebook is expanding the Live Audio rooms feature it launched in the US in June to a global audience. In addition to public figures and creators, Facebook is making the feature — a Clubhouse competitor— available to groups as well.

When it first launched, Live Audio rooms could be created via Facebook’s iOS app; it’s now added the ability to create rooms in its Android app as well. People will now be able to listen to Live Audio Rooms on desktop, but still have to use a mobile app for creation. Within groups, admins can control who enters an audio room, with private and public options available.

The social media giant is also rolling out its Soundbites short-audio feature to more users in the US. Soundbites live in users’ News Feeds;...

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