Where to preorder Amazon’s new Echo devices

The new Echo Pop retails for $39.99 and comes in a variety of colors. | Image: Amazon

Out of the blue, Amazon dropped a slew of new Echo devices today. One of these, the Echo Pop, is a brand-new smart speaker with a semi-sphere form factor we haven’t seen before. The other two are revamped versions of the Echo Show 5 and Echo Buds, both of which feature more than just a few changes.

Amazon won’t start shipping the new devices until the end of the month, but you can preorder them starting today. To help you wrap your head around what’s new and how to buy the new gadgets, we’ve put together this piece with product highlights, preorder links, and pricing details. Given how often Amazon discounts its devices, we’ll also update you when we start seeing the sales roll in, so be sure to keep an eye on our deals coverage.

Where...

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Uber for teens: the company lifts age restrictions to allow unaccompanied minors for the first time

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Uber announced a new account for teenagers that allows minors to take rides without their parent or guardian present.

Prior to today’s announcement, unaccompanied minors were not allowed to request Uber rides. Uber has required users to be at least 18 years of age to sign up for an account since it was founded over a decade ago. But now, the company is allowing teens aged 13 to 17 to have their own account and take their own rides — as long as it’s linked to their guardian’s account.

“Our approach here is to solve a problem that is unsolved, that is a massive pain point in our users’ lives, both the guardians as well as the teens,” Sachin Kansal, vice president for product at Uber, said in an interview.

Image: Uber ...

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In the new Mission: Impossible trailer, Tom Cruise could really use Link’s glider

Ethan hunt gazing over the side of a cliff. | Paramount

Even now, just a couple of months before its release, it’s hard to tell just what Ethan Hunt and the gang are all going on about in Paramount’s overly punctuated Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. In the movie’s latest trailer, trying to save (or in some cases, destroy) the world seems to be synonymous with risking one’s life while doing absurd stunts, which makes sense for the franchise. But watching Ethan Hunt jump from all these great heights, it’s hard not to want to see him pull out a glider to descend from the sky rather than bank on the plot armor we all know is going to keep him from falling to his death.

The last thing Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) wants is for any of his allies to lose their lives as they team up to take...

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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom — all the latest on Nintendo’s huge sequel

Link in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom_._ | Image: Nintendo

Nintendo’s sequel to Breath of the Wild launches on May 12th.

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Tears of the Kingdom sold 10 million copies in just three days

Image: Nintendo / The Verge

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has become the Zelda franchise’s fastest selling game. According to Nintendo, the game sold 10 million copies worldwide in the three days after it launched on May 12th. Just to give you an idea of where that stacks among the Switch’s best games, Breath of the Wild, in its six-year lifetime, has sold almost 30 million copies, while Mario Kart 8 has sold 53 million copies.

So to recap, Tears of the Kingdom has sold a third of the copies of its predecessor and 20 percent of the bestselling Switch game of all time in just three days.

This is a game selling on six-year-old hardware locked at a quaint 30fps that largely takes place in a setting players have seen and explored before. Nintendo is...

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Sony is holding an hour-long PlayStation Showcase next week

Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

The summer of gaming events is starting a little early this year. Sony announced that it will be holding a PlayStation Showcase event on May 24th at 1PM PT. And it sounds like a big one: the stream will be more than an hour long and include games for both the PS5 and PS VR2. “Expect a glimpse at several new creations from PlayStation Studios, as well as spellbinding games from our third-party partners and indie creators,” the company says. It’ll stream on both YouTube and Twitch.

As for what to expect, Sony has a number of upcoming blockbusters, including the superhero games Spider-Man 2 and Wolverine, while I wouldn’t be surprised to see Death Stranding 2 make an appearance. The announcement also specifies “new IP,” so expect the...

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Beats Studio Buds Plus review: it’s cool to be clear

With better sound, improved noise cancellation, and a standout translucent design, these are everything the original Beats Studio Buds should’ve been.

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Amazon’s latest Echo Buds have an all-new design and much cheaper price

The new Echo Buds have an open-ear design. | Image: Amazon

Okay, Amazon. You got me. This is not at all what I expected the next pair of Echo Buds to look like. Two years after releasing its second-gen set of noise-canceling earbuds, Amazon has returned with a different approach. The new Echo Buds ditch noise cancellation and ear tips altogether in favor of a semi-open design not unlike the regular AirPods or 1More ComfoBuds. The overhauled design has led to a far more affordable $49.99 price compared to the $139.99 Echo Buds — now known as “Echo Buds with Active Noise Cancellation” to differentiate the two. You can preorder the new pair starting today and they’ll ship on June 7th.

Aside from comfort, the other main benefit of a semi-open design is that you’re always able to hear and remain...

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Amazon pops out a new Echo smart speaker

The Echo Pop is Amazon’s latest Alexa-powered smart speaker. | Image: Amazon

Amazon has slashed its Echo Dot in half. No, it’s not on another sale, but the design of the company’s newest smart speaker — the $39.99 Echo Pop — looks an awful lot like someone took a meat cleaver to an Echo Dot. The result is actually kind of cute — especially in purple.

The jaunty-looking Pop is now the entry-level Alexa-powered smart speaker in Amazon’s Echo lineup. It has all the signature features of an Echo speaker: a voice-controlled device that can do various tasks, including stream music, control smart home devices, run timers, and add eggs to your shopping lists.

Along with the new Pop, the $89.99 Echo Show 5 smart display is getting a long-overdue refresh. The third-gen model of the smallest and most popular of Amazon’s...

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World wired

Illustration by Hugo Herrera for The Verge

Even though so much of our world is now wireless, most of those beautiful signals are still made possible by a worldwide network of hardwired cables — from the huge backbones of internet service providers to the ethernet lines in people’s homes. The cables that connect continents under the ocean alone span a length of more than 700,000 miles. Just 50 years after the invention of ethernet, our planet Earth is now literally wrapped in the embrace of the internet. It’s the cord that can’t be cut.

This special issue from The Verge takes a look at the impact ethernet has had on our world on its 50th birthday. In partnership with the Computer History Museum, we’re reflecting on the origins and consequences of this incredible technology. From...

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StableStudio is Stability AI’s latest commitment to open-source AI

StableStudio is effectively DreamStudio, only with a new plug-in system and no DreamStudio branding. | Image: Stability AI

Stability AI is releasing an open-source version of DreamStudio, a commercial interface for the company’s AI image generator model, Stable Diffusion. In a press statement on Wednesday, Stability AI said the new release — dubbed StableStudio — “marks a fresh chapter” for the platform and will serve as a showcase for the company’s “dedication to advancing open-source development.”

Making an open-source version of DreamStudio carries benefits for Stability AI. It allows community developers to improve and experiment with the interface, with the company potentially reaping the rewards conferred by these improvements. Stability AI stressed community building in its press release, noting how “from enabling local-first development, to...

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We’ll always have Mario Kart: the short-lived joy of console LAN parties

Illustration by Hugo Herrera for The Verge

It’s time to talk about my good buddy RJ. RJ45, that is. Well, technically, we’re going to talk about how ethernet cables, which tend to use an RJ45 connector, are glue that once bound so many of us together in multiplayer gaming bliss (before then, too, but my part of this story began at the turn of the century). It was a joyous copper pipeline for so many who might have looked askance at the four-player couch multiplayer that was the only context in which most ordinary people could relate to gaming with friends. That’s right; we’re talking LAN parties.

You know the ones. You heft, in multiple trips, your whole gaming rig — a beefy CRT monitor, honkin’ water-cooled desktop machine, keyboard, headphones (or outboard speakers if you’re...

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Logitech partners with iFixit for self repairs

Products from the Logitech MX Master (pictured) and MX Anywhere mouse range will be the first to receive official spares and battery replacements. | Photo by Jon Porter / The Verge

Hanging on to your favorite wireless mouse just got a little easier thanks to a new partnership between Logitech and DIY repair specialists iFixit. The two companies are working together to reduce unnecessary e-waste and help customers repair their own out-of-warranty Logitech hardware by supplying spare parts, batteries, and repair guides for “select products.”

Everything will eventually be housed in the iFixit Logitech Repair Hub, with parts available to purchase as needed or within “Fix Kits” that provide everything needed to complete the repair, such as tools and precision bit sets.

Starting “this summer,” Logitech’s MX Master and MX Anywhere mouse models will be the first products to receive spare parts. Pricing information has not...

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Buckle up because El Niño is almost here, and it’s going to get hot

Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge

The next five years are almost guaranteed to be sweltering, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned today. Climate change has already raised baseline temperatures for the planet. Now, a weather pattern known as El Niño is going to make things even hotter when it develops later this year.

That one-two punch from El Niño and climate change is expected to “push global temperatures into uncharted territory,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a press release today. “This will have far-reaching repercussions for health, food security, water management and the environment. We need to be prepared.”

“We need to be prepared.”

There’s a 98 percent chance that one of the following five years will be the warmest on record,...

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Elon Musk keeps insisting the Texas shooter with a swastika tattoo is not a white supremacist

Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

In an interview with CNBC Tuesday evening, Elon Musk defended spreading conspiracy theories about the deadly mass shooting in Texas earlier this month.

On May 9th, open-source intelligence research group Bellingcat posted a story with details about the shooter that indicated he held white supremacist and neo-Nazi views. Bellingcat’s story included social media posts from the Russian social network Odnoklassniki that traced back to the shooter, including photos featuring a large swastika tattoo and body armor with a RWDS (Right-Wing Death Squad, a far-right slogan) patch. The Texas Department of Public Safety has also said that the shooter showed indications of holding neo-Nazi ideology, with an official saying that “He had patches. He...

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Elon Musk: I will say what I want even if it loses me money

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

During an interview on CNBC, Elon Musk defended his right to say inflammatory things on Twitter, even if those statements lose him money. He appeared to disassociate briefly after being asked why even bother tweeting. And he eventually quoted The Princess Bride to explain his cavalier attitude toward what he shares on Twitter.

It was a very weird interview.

The interview came after a particular troubling run of tweets for Musk, in which he promoted conspiracy theories about a mass shooting in Texas, was accused of antisemitism after claiming that George Soros “hates humanity,” and retweeted discredited theories about crime and race.

Elon Musk on Tuesday said that if his inflammatory tweets scare away advertisers from Twitter, he will...

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Tesla will ‘try a little advertising,’ Elon Musk says

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Tesla might be getting into advertising, Elon Musk announced in a shareholder meeting on Tuesday. Tesla has long been a holdout on traditional advertising, and has found extensive growth over the years through mostly word of mouth. But now Musk has seemingly discovered the importance of the advertising business now that he owns Twitter.

“Twitter is highly dependent on advertising, so, here I am, never used advertising really before, and now have a company that’s highly dependent on advertising. So, I guess I should say advertising is awesome, everyone should do it!” Musk said on stage. Musk also pointed out that Tesla could benefit from advertising by shedding light on features people may not know about, Musk said. “We’ll try a little...

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Elon Musk says ‘get off your work-from-home bullshit’

Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

In an interview aired on CNBC, Elon Musk called remote work “morally wrong” and “bullshit,” arguing it was unfair to those workers who can’t work from home.

Musk, who banned remote work at Twitter after acquiring the company, has not been shy about sharing his disdain about work from home policies. But in the interview, Musk was more animated than usual, arguing that remote work was counter-productive.

“I’m a big believer that people need to be more productive when they’re in person,” he told CNBC’s David Faber.

“I’m a big believer that people need to be more productive when they’re in person”

Musk imposed a strict return-to-the-office policy for Tesla in June 2022, warning them they would lose their jobs if they refused to do so....

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Valve just got sued by Immersion over Steam Deck and Index rumble

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Consider it a rite of passage: Valve has finally become successful enough at building gaming hardware that it’s getting sued by Immersion Corporation.

Immersion — the haptic feedback company that’s purchased, developed, or otherwise accumulated so many patents on rumble tech that almost every major tech company has licensed or settled out of court — is now accusing Valve of infringing its patents with the Steam Deck handheld, the Valve Index VR platform, its SteamVR software, and Half-Life: Alyx among other titles. There’s no mention of Valve’s long-gone Steam Controller, which also used lots of haptic feedback.

Immersion is asking for damages, royalties, and an injunction against Valve “from deploying, operating, maintaining, testing,...

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The first four Indiana Jones movies are coming to Disney Plus on May 31st

Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. | Image: Paramount

The first four Indiana Jones movies haven’t been available on Disney Plus in the past, thanks to an agreement between Disney and Paramount that split distribution rights between the two studios. Previously, you had to head over to Paramount Plus if you wanted to get an Indy fix, but that’s all changing just in time for the release of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

Apropos of Dial of Destiny’s upcoming June 30th release, Disney announced today during its upfront event that the first four Indiana Jones movies will be available to stream beginning on May 31st.

Adventure has a new home. The first four #IndianaJones movies arrive May 31 on #DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/bmgQ5zQGs7

— Disney+ (@DisneyPlus) May 16, 2023

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Ring founder to become CEO of commercial smart home company Latch

Image: Latch

Just a day after we found out Ring co-founder Jamie Siminoff was leaving Amazon and Ring altogether, it seems he will become CEO of enterprise smart home company Latch after it buys Honest Day’s Work (HDW), a little-known business Siminoff appears to have founded about four months ago.

The interim CEO, Jason Keyes, had this to say:

“I am confident Jamie’s passion for leading mission-driven technology companies, his operational expertise, and his track record for creating industry-dominating products will be invaluable as Latch enters its next phase. I am excited about the opportunity to further improve our customer experience via the integration of HDW services into LatchOS.”

LatchOS is the name of the company’s “full-building operating...

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Loki season 2 hits Disney Plus this October

Tom Hiddleston as Loki. | Image: Marvel Studios / Disney Plus

It’s been two long years since Marvel’s Loki series first crash-landed on Disney Plus to upend MCU’s carefully crafted timeline, and now, we finally know when the show’s second season will drop.

Marvel’s Kevin Feige didn’t really have all that much to share in the way of fascinating plot details during his presentation at Disney’s upfront presentation this evening, but he did finally announce the premiere dates for both Loki season 2 and Echo, the Hawkeyespinoff starring Alaqua Cox as its titular heroine. Loki’s second season will premiere on October 6th, followed by Echo’s first season premiere on November 29th.

Marvel Studios @DisneyPlus

A new season of #Loki starts streaming October 6, 2023.
All episodes of #Echo drop November 29,...

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Tesla Bot can walk very slowly and pick up stuff now

Tesla Bots shown walking in front of a Cybertruck | Image: Tesla

Tesla is showing off new footage of its Tesla Bots in what appears to be a production-ready chassis, now walking forward (slowly) without some of the stumbles we’d seen in their first reveal. The robots can also apparently do other things, like pick up items and recognize objects.

The new video was presented by Elon Musk during today’s shareholder meeting event, with Musk claiming the team just put it together the night before.

Tesla’s Bot, which is designed as a humanoid robot, was originally revealed last year at the company’s AI Day event. At the time, Tesla could only show a deconstructed version of the bot that robot could barely walk forward, let alone perform any manual labor on stage. A version that was supposed to be closer to...

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Here are the best iPad deals right now

Select iPad models go on sale quite regularly. | Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

While the best iPad deals come around during major sale events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Amazon Prime Day, you can still find plenty of great discounts at all times of the year if you know where to look. Whether you’re after the high-end iPad Pro or the most affordable entry-level iPad, there’s likely a sale going on somewhere that you may be interested in.

Of course, it’s difficult to know exactly where you can find the most notable deals unless you’re scouring the major retailers on a daily basis. But that’s often what our deal hunters at The Verge are doing each and every day, so let us help you out. Below, we’ve listed the best deals you can get on each iPad model that is currently available, including the latest ones...

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Congress hates Big Tech — but it still seems optimistic about AI

Photo by Win McNamee / Getty Images

Kicking off a series of AI hearings Tuesday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) used a text-to-voice generator trained on hours of his speeches to deliver an opening statement before OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voiced urgency (or had a computer do it for them) about regulating artificial intelligence during the hearing. But they struck a largely friendly tone with Altman, who supported many of the same reforms they proposed. For his part, Altman latched onto the idea of Congress creating a new agency tasked with regulating artificial intelligence and licensing its development by larger companies.

“We believe that the benefits of the tools we have deployed so far vastly outweigh the risks,” Altman said...

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Here are the best Apple Watch deals right now

The Apple Watch Series 8 isn’t a massive step up from the prior model, but it does offer a few new features. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

In September, Apple launched its latest batch of smartwatches, introducing the first-ever Ultra ($799) alongside the Series 8 ($399) and a new Apple Watch SE ($249). Each wearable has its own pros and cons associated with it, but the introduction of the high-end Ultra also means there are now more Apple Watch models on the market before than ever before — and a lot more deals to be had.

But with all of those options, which one should you pick? Generally speaking, you want to buy the newest watch you can afford so that it continues to receive software updates from Apple. The latest update, watchOS 9, launched on the Apple Watch Series 4 and newer models in September, though no one can say with certainty whether the Series 4 will get the...

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Why companies still shy away from podcast ads

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

This is Hot Pod, The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.

Today, we’re mixing it up a bit. First off, I have a post-Podcast Upfronts Q&A I conducted with SiriusXM’s Lizzie Widhelm and Scott Walker. Both Widhelm and Walker are a part of SXM Media, the massive ads operation that powers SiriusXM, Pandora, SoundCloud (through a partnership), and the SiriusXM Podcast Network (which includes in-house studios like Team Coco and partners like Crooked Media).

Following that, I’ll have some more news on Crooked Media’s new subscription offering, an extremely podcast-inspired Peacock show, as well as some key moves and announcements.

SXM Media leaders talk about how podcast ads are still maturing

W...

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The best smartphone you can buy for under $500

You can get a great device for less than $500 these days if you know how to pick your priorities. | Image: The Verge

You can’t have absolutely everything at this price, but you can get a great smartphone. Whether you want an iPhone, a 120Hz screen, or water resistance, you’ve got options.

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Overwatch 2’s ambitious hero mode scrapped to focus on live game

Blizzard

Overwatch 2’s long-awaited hero missions PvE mode is no more. In a developer livestream, game director Aaron Keller said that the team is canceling the game’s PvE-based hero missions in favor of continuing on with seasonal, story-focused events.

When Blizzard first announced Overwatch 2, the developers teased that the game would have two PvE campaign modes adjacent to its traditional competitive modes.

In the presentation announcing Overwatch 2 during Blizzcon 2019, former game director Jeff Kaplan spoke of hero missions and story missions that encompassed the game’s PvE elements and drove the game’s narrative. Story missions would be like the story-focused events the original Overwatch already had. Players would group up and fight...

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Verizon’s new plans make sense to nobody except Verizon

Surprising nobody, Verizon comes out ahead yet again. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Hey, did you hear? Verizon has incredibly, out of the goodness of its heart, revealed new phone plans that don’t include “bloated” service bundles. How thoughtful! There’s just one catch: they’re kinda less expensive, except not really, because things that used to be included are now an extra $10 per month each. Wait, that... kind of sucks? Who exactly comes out ahead with these new plans?

You guessed it! It’s Verizon.

On the surface, the new plans sound simpler than the current Get More, Play More, etc. There are two options — an expensive one and a bit less expensive one — and you add the extra services you want, like the Disney / Hulu bundle or Apple Music Family a la carte. That’s nice in theory, but if you’re switching from one of...

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