Here are the best Amazon Echo deals right now

Here are the best Amazon Echo deals right now

Like Amazon’s Echo speakers, its various smart displays come in a range of sizes. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Amazon’s current Echo lineup offers a broad selection of smart speakers and displays that can fit just about anywhere in your home. Whether you want to place a voice assistant in your living room, replace the bulletin board in your office, or pick up a touchscreen-enabled device to showcase recipes in the kitchen, there's an Echo device for just about every occasion and use case.

Regardless of why you might want one, there’s always a way to save on Echo devices, from the last-gen Dot to the wall-mounted Echo Show 15. Even when they’re selling at full price, for instance, Amazon offers a 25 percent discount when you trade in select devices, meaning there are still other ways to save money when none of the models are on sale.

Below, we’ve rounded up the best deals available on each device in Amazon’s Echo lineup. The bulk of them are currently only available for their full retail price, but some models — specifically the second-gen Echo Show 5 Kids — are still available at a steep discount.

Best Amazon Echo deals

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The best Echo Dot deals

In September, Amazon announced the fifth generation of the Echo Dot. It looks more like a sphere than an actual dot — much like its last-gen predecessor — but offers twice as much bass as the prior model and a temperature sensor; it also doubles as an Eero mesh Wi-Fi extender, though, said functionality will also be coming to the prior model at some point via a free over-the-air firmware update.

Despite the arrival of the new model, you can still pick up the third-gen Echo Dot, which retains the puck-like design of earlier models and is available for its full retail price of $39.99 at Amazon, Target, and Best Buy. As for the fifth-gen model, it’s currently available at Best Buy, Target, and Amazon for $49.99 with up to four months of Amazon Music Unlimited.

If you’re looking to upgrade, Amazon, Target, and Best Buy are also selling the latest Echo Dot with a built-in LED display that showcases the time, weather, and other info for $49.99, which is about $15 more than the speaker’s most recent sale price.

The best Echo Dot Kids deals

Like the fourth-gen Echo Dot Kids, the fifth-gen iteration is as spherical as the adult version but is designed to look like a variety of creatures, specifically an owl or a dragon. It also comes with a year of Amazon’s Kids Plus service, which provides access to a slew of kid-friendly content, including audiobooks and games. That said, the latest edition features better sound, a temperature sensor, and other enhancements found on the standard model.

If you want to buy the newest, kid-centric Echo Dot, it’s available at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target right now for $59.99 (about $30 more than its best price to date).

The best Amazon Echo deals

The fourth-gen Amazon Echo also received a makeover in late 2020. The latest model sports a sphere-shaped design like the newer Echo Dot models, but one that’s noticeably bigger. That said, it also touts a built-in smart home hub and produces better sound than the fifth-gen Dot thanks to a pair of 0.8-inch tweeters and a 3-inch woofer.

As of right now, the fourth-gen Echo is on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target with up to four months of Amazon Music Unlimited for $99.99 — about $25 more than the speaker’s most recent sale price and a far cry from its all-time low of $49.99.

The best Amazon Echo Studio deals

If you’re interested in an Alexa smart speaker with better audio quality and Dolby Atmos support, the Echo Studio is the Amazon product to check out. Although the speaker made its debut in 2019, Amazon recently rolled out an over-the-air software update that imbues it with new spatial audio processing technology and frequency range extension, which supposedly allows for improved clarity and a more immersive sound profile.

Unfortunately, however, Amazon’s Echo Studio is currently only available in black or white at Target, Amazon, and Best Buy for its usual asking price of $199.99. Like with other Echo devices, the latter retailer is also offering four months of Amazon Music Unlimited for free with each purchase.

The best Echo Show 5 deals

If you are looking for a compact Echo device that functions more as a smart clock than an entertainment speaker, the Echo Show 5 is the Echo device to consider. The latest edition, which launched in 2021, features an always-on microphone, an upgraded 2MP camera, a 5.5-inch display, and a physical shutter, allowing you to block the camera’s view.

Right now, the second-gen Echo Show 5 is available at Amazon, Target, and Best Buy in blue, black, or white for $84.99, which is $50 more than the smart display’s best price to date.

The best Echo Show 5 Kids deals

The Echo Dot isn’t the only Echo device with a kid-friendly design. The Echo Show 5 Kids offers all of the same features as the standard, second-gen Echo Show 5, only with a vibrant print on the rear and a year of Amazon’s Kids Plus service, which grants your family access to a trove of videos, games, and other kid-friendly content. It even comes with a two-year warranty, providing a bit of protection from whatever your child might (literally) throw at it.

As far as pricing goes, the Echo Show 5 Kids is currently discounted at Amazon and Target to just $44.99 ($50 off), which nearly matches the smart display’s best price to date.

The best Echo Show 8 deals

Like the Echo Show 5, the Echo Show 8 is typically available in two distinct models, both of which feature 8-inch displays and dual speakers. However, unlike the first-gen Echo Show 8, the latest model is equipped with a 13MP camera and some unique software tricks, one of which grants it the ability to keep the subject centered in the frame as they move around.

We recently saw the second-gen Show 8 drop to an all-time low of $69.99 ($60 off), which is $50 less than the smart speaker’s current price at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target. Best Buy is also offering the second-gen model with four months of Amazon Music Unlimited at no additional cost.

The best Echo Show 10 deals

Two years ago, Amazon introduced a third-gen Echo Show 10. The device features a 10.1-inch HD screen and, unlike the Show 5 and Show 8, the 2021 model allows you to adjust the angle of the screen. It’s also mounted on a motorized, swiveling base that allows the display to follow you as you move. If you plan on doing a lot of video calling, this is the model to get.

We’ve seen the latest Echo Show 10 get discounted to as low as $169.99 ($80 off), however, it’s currently only available at retailers like Amazon, Target, and Best Buy for its full retail price of $249.99. Amazon is also offering it to select customers with six months of Amazon Music Unlimited, while Best Buy is throwing in four months of Amazon Music Unlimited.

The best Echo Show 15 deals

Unlike other smart displays in Amazon’s Echo lineup, the new Echo Show 15 is a large, wall-mounted device with a 15.6-inch touch display. It’s designed to replace the likes of bulletin boards and calendars, and as such, it functions as a shared hub for families where everyone can see digital sticky notes, upcoming calendar appointments, shopping lists, and other reminders. It also features support for Alexa, meaning it offers the same functionality as other Echo displays and smart speakers, and you can even use it as a decent 1080p TV in your kitchen or to display photos and artwork. It’s compatible with an optional stand, too, though, we’d argue it remains a better fit for your wall than your countertop given its size.

Having launched at the end of 2021, we’ve only seen a handful of discounts on the Echo Show 15. That said, you can currently buy it at Amazon, Best Buy, and B&H Photo for $249.99, its full retail price and $80 more than its sale price during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Two new Wyze cameras appear to be in the works

Two new Wyze cameras appear to be in the works

Technologist Dave Zatz has discovered some clues about new Wyze security cameras. | Image: Zatznotfunny.com

Wyze already announced three new cameras this month, but it looks like the company has even more up its sleeves. Tech blogger Dave Zatz dug up information on two not-yet-announced cameras: a new Wyze outdoor cam and an updated Wyze Cam Floodlight.

The Wyze Cam Outdoor Pro (or possibly Wyze Battery Cam Pro) looks to be an upgrade of the Wyze Cam Outdoor v2, adding 2K video resolution. The new Wyze Cam Floodlight Pro also appears to be getting a 2K resolution bump over the original 1080p model, in keeping with Wyze’s new line of Pro cameras, as well as possibly more flood lighting.

Zatz says his info comes from details hidden in the Wyze Android app APK, filings at the Bluetooth SIG, and from other sources. The Verge was able to confirm that a filing for the Wyze Cam Floodlight Pro appears in the Bluetooth group’s qualification list.

Renderings show the new Cam Outdoor Pro with a significantly different form factor from that of the standard square Wyze Cam, possibly to incorporate a removable battery.

This would be a first for Wyze: its existing battery-powered cameras have to be charged in place. A removable battery is more convenient as you don’t need to take the whole camera down to charge it. This is a path Ring has successfully followed; it uses removable batteries in all of its wireless cameras.

Image: Zatznotfunny.com

The new Wyze Cam Outdoor Pro may have a different form factor from Wyze’s existing lineup.

Zatz speculates that, in addition to 2K video, the Cam Outdoor Pro may have an improved speaker and mics, plus a faster live view. Renderings also show a microSD card to enable local recording, and Zatz says it appears the new camera will not require a separate base station, unlike the v2. This would explain its bulkier form factor, it will need a bigger battery if it relies directly on Wi-Fi, which uses a lot of power.

Image: Zatznotfunny.com

The inside of the Wyze outdoor camera shows space for a removable battery and an SD card for local recordings.

The new floodlight camera also looks to be part of the “Pro” line. The current Wyze Cam Floodlight is one of our picks for the best floodlight camera, in part due to its rock-bottom $100 price. Interestingly, cost-conscious competitor Blink has a wired floodlight cam slated for release shortly that’s also $100.

There’s no pricing yet on this Wyze model, but the big difference seems to be a purpose-built dome-style camera rather than just adding Wyze Cam v3 onto some floodlights (as is the case with the Wyze Cam Floodlight).

Whether this will supplant the ability to add a second Wyze Cam to see around corners (which you can do with the current model), we’ll have to wait and see. Zatz posits it may be a pan-and-tilt camera and that it may come with more floodlights than the previous model.

It is worth noting that Wyze has a checkered history with security on its cameras and long-term support for its products. There are no details on pricing or availability for either model.

‘It’s the opposite of art’: why illustrators are furious about AI

‘It’s the opposite of art’: why illustrators are furious about AI

AI art generators may provide five minutes of fun for most users, but the blurring of creative and ethical boundaries is leaving many artists raging against the machine

‘Woman reading book, under a night sky, dreamy atmosphere,” I type into Deep Dream Generator’s Text 2 Dream feature. In less than a minute, an image is returned to me showing what I’ve described. Welcome to the world of AI image generation, where you can create what on the surface looks like top-notch artwork using just a few text prompts, even if in reality your skills don’t go beyond drawing stick figures.

AI image generation seems to be everywhere: on TikTok, the popular AI Manga filter shows you what you look like in the Japanese comic style, while people in their droves are using it to create images for everything from company logos to picture books. It’s already been used by one major publisher: sci-fi imprint Tor discovered that a cover it had created had used a licensed image created by AI, but decided to go ahead anyway “due to production constraints”.

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Samsung may put its free TV Plus streaming app into other manufacturers’ TVs

Samsung may put its free TV Plus streaming app into other manufacturers’ TVs

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Samsung TV Plus, the app that houses hundreds of free channels, could eventually make its way to other, non-Samsung TVs. That’s according to media tech reporter Janko Roettgers, who writes in his Lowpass newsletter that Samsung’s in talks to bring its streaming app to TCL TVs.

Introduced in 2015, Samsung TV Plus is a free, ad-supported streaming (FAST) service that comes preinstalled on newer Samsung TVs. The service gives viewers a way to flip through a collection of channels, much like you would with a traditional TV service.

Samsung TV Plus has a pretty strong slate of content for a free app, with Samsung adding popular shows like Top Gear, Law & Order Special Victims Unit, NCIS, and Chicago Fire last August. It also offers a range of local and nationwide news channels, along with Samsung-made channels, such as Ride or Drive and The Movie Hub. TV Plus currently has around 1,600 channels split across 24 different countries, along with 220 channels in the US.

It sounds like Samsung wants to make its TV Plus service a free-floating app

While the company has floated the idea of licensing individual channels to other TV makers, a source tells Roettgers that these talks “don’t seem to have gone anywhere.” Because of that, Samsung has instead switched gears to offering the entire TV Plus app to third-party manufacturers. Over the years, Samsung has been expanding the reach of TV Plus, and made the service available on Galaxy devices, the web, and even on select Family Hub refrigerator models.

Other TV manufacturers, including TCL, LG, and Vizio, have free streaming apps of their own, which also compete with services that aren’t tethered to specific TVs, including Paramount’s Pluto TV, NBC’s Peacock, Fox’s Tubi, Roku, and Amazon Freevee. It looks like Samsung wants to make its TV Plus service a free-floating app as well, but it’s unclear if other manufacturers will want the app on their TVs — or if the app would even be successful.

As Roettgers points out, “the success of FAST services is closely tied to the level of promotion they receive on the platform level,” such as its inclusion in the TV’s interface, or as a button on its remote. The Verge reached out to Samsung with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.

In August, Samsung said TV Plus saw a 100 percent growth in consumer viewing over the past year, and that viewers streamed 3 billion hours globally. Meanwhile, a report from Deadline attests to the growth of the FAST market as a whole, as data the outlet obtained from S&P Market Intelligence indicates that the FAST market in the US was expected to bring in about $4 billion in revenue last year, and could hit nearly $9 billion by 2026.

Other companies, including Warner Bros. Discovery, are keeping a close eye on the opportunities that the FAST industry presents. Even YouTube has started testing a free ad-supported channel as a potential option for those who don’t want to pay the rising costs of streaming Netflix, Disney Plus, and Hulu, but also don’t want cable.

While I don’t have a Samsung TV myself, I have to say I enjoy the various free content I get to surf through on LG Channels. For me, it’s a lot less daunting to flick through channels and eventually settle on what I want to watch, rather than having to browse through the hundreds of shows laid out in front of me on Netflix or Hulu.

Merriam-Webster acquires popular Wordle clone, Quordle

Merriam-Webster acquires popular Wordle clone, Quordle

Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Quordle, the word-solving game that emerged at the height of Wordle’s popularity, has been acquired by Merriam-Webster, as first reported by TechCrunch. The game now lives directly on Merriam-Webster’s website, rather than on its own.

“I’m delighted to announce that Quordle was acquired by @MerriamWebster,” a post on Quorlde’s Twitter account reads. “I can’t think of a better home for this game. Lots of news features and fun to come, so stay tuned!”

Quordle is just one of many spinoffs that tried to piggyback off of the success of Wordle, which had users posting their scores across Twitter and competing with friends to solve the word of the day with the least guesses.

Screenshot: Emma Roth / The Verge

Quordle’s now available from Merriam-Webster’s website.

Unlike Wordle, which gives you six guesses to figure out a five-letter word, Quordle quadruples the challenge by making you solve four five-letter words at once with nine guesses. Both games give you new words to solve on a daily basis.

Wordle, which was created by Josh Wardle in 2018, was acquired by The New York Times for an undisclosed seven-figure sum last year, joining the outlet’s existing lineup of crossword puzzles and games. The game became so popular that Apple had trouble keeping copycats off the App Store (Wordle didn’t have an app at the time). Even Spotify got in on the trend by creating Heardle, a Wordle-like game that gives you five chances to figure out the name of a song based on increasingly long snippets.

Finally, a solution to the Switch’s Joy-Con drift

Finally, a solution to the Switch’s Joy-Con drift

Gulikit’s joystick replacements use Hall effect sensors that make them less likely to wear down. | Image: Gulikit

After years of dealing with Joy-Con drift and no satisfactory answers from Nintendo, we may finally have our solution. A company called Gulikit created a set of Switch joystick replacements that promise to banish stick drift once and for all (via Gizmodo).

If you’re a Switch owner, you’re probably well-acquainted with Joy-Con drift, which creates annoying false inputs even when you’re not touching the thumbsticks. It’s been a problem ever since the Switch came out and still hasn’t been fully fixed in the new OLED model (although Nintendo says it’s made some “improvements”). While you can send your Joy-Cons away for a free repair at Nintendo (or just buy a new set), the sticks will inevitably start drifting again.

Image: Gulikit

Take a look at these drift-free joystick replacements.

Unlike your standard Joy-Cons from Nintendo, Gulikit’s joystick replacements use something called Hall effect sensors to essentially make them drift-proof — the same technology used by Sega’s 90s-era Saturn 3D and Dreamcast controllers. As iFixit points out, the sensors use magnets to detect the joystick’s movement, which means none of the components actually rub up against each other and wear out like the sensors used on Joy-Cons do.

One of the reasons Joy-Cons drift in the first place is that they use potentiometers. This technology deteriorates over time, resulting in incorrect readings that make your controller seem like it's possessed. In 2021, Nintendo executive Ko Shiota likened the problem to car tires that “wear out as the car moves, as they are in constant friction with the ground to rotate.”

That’s where Gulikit’s joysticks come in. The sticks, which are available for $29.70 on Amazon will presumably put an end to frequent Joy-Con replacements and repair orders (that should absolutely not be the case). You’ll have to install the replacement joysticks yourself, of course, but this video from iFixit should point you in the right direction when it comes to dismantling the Joy-Cons. Gulikit’s joysticks also come with a screwdriver, replacement screws, a tweezer, and a plastic pry tool to help you get started.

While we haven’t gotten the chance to try them for ourselves, users on Amazon have left mostly positive reviews. However, there are some saying they leave a small gap between the ring that’s supposed to prevent dust and other debris from getting inside the Switch, although it’s unclear how or if this will affect the sticks (or the Joy-Cons themselves). Gulikit also has replacement joysticks for the Steam Deck, as well as a full-blown KingKong 2 Pro controller with hall effect sensors.

Keep in mind that adding the third-party sticks could void the warranty on your Switch and Joy-Cons, but is still a potential solution if you’re fed up with stick drift. It’s just sad that — in the year 2023 — we have to go through all this just to get things to work properly when the technology’s already there, and has been there for decades.

The third-party apps Twitter just killed made the site what it is today

The third-party apps Twitter just killed made the site what it is today

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The age of great third-party Twitter clients may be over. After Twitter cut off their API access and changed its rules to bar apps that compete with its own, The Iconfactory has announced that it’s discontinuing Twitterific, Fenix has been pulled from app stores, and Tapbots has posted a memorial for Tweetbot. It’s a loss for all the people who used the apps and, almost certainly, a loss for Twitter itself.

As many people have pointed out over the past week, third-party clients helped make Twitter the platform it is today, innovating parts of Twitter we take for granted and, in the early days, helping form the company’s very identity. They’ve also acted as a safe haven from unwanted changes, helping to keep people tweeting when they were ready to give up on the platform.

Image: The Iconfactory

Twitter didn’t put a bird in its logo until 2010. Here’s a screenshot from Twitterific’s site in 2007, with the bird explaining how to install the Mac app. The iPhone’s App Store wouldn’t come along until over a year later.

Take, for example, that word I just used — tweeting. The idea that a “tweet” would be what we call a Twitter post didn’t actually come from the company itself, according to a blog post from Twitterific developer Craig Hockenberry. Instead, it was suggested by Blaine Cook, a QA tester for The Iconfactory’s third-party client, and immediately adopted. It wasn’t until at least a year later that Twitter the company started using the phrase too. (Originally, Twitter preferred “twittering.”) Twitterific also led the way in using a bird logo.

Third-party apps have had a massive impact on how we use smartphone apps in general, not just Twitter. A client called Tweetie is widely credited for inventing the pull-to-refresh interaction that’s become almost ubiquitous throughout iOS and Android for refreshing all sorts of feeds. Even if you haven’t heard of Tweetie before, you may have used it; in 2010, Twitter acquired it and made it the official iPhone client. In 2015, the company also hired a developer of a different third-party client to improve its Android app.

Images: Tweetie / Twitter via The Wayback Machine

Left: Tweetie 2 in 2010. Right: Twitter for iPhone in 2011.

It’s also not the only time Twitter acquired a popular third-party client outright. TweetDeck, a part of The Verge’s newsroom to this day, was an independent app for years until the company bought it.

Third-party client users, who numbered in the millions in 2018, often enjoyed features years before they came to the official app. Echofon added the ability to mute unwanted users and hashtags in 2011, a feature the official versions didn’t get until 2014.

Screenshot: Echofon via The Wayback Machine

An Echofon screenshot from 2011.

The apps have also acted as safe havens from Twitter’s changes; they didn’t have the flood of recommended and out-of-order tweets that the official app did, and they gave us options for using a Twitter app for Macs after the official one was discontinued for a year. And, yes, people have used third-party clients to get an ad-free Twitter experience, not because they purposefully stripped out ads but because Twitter didn’t serve them through the API. (Side note: it’s hard to believe that Twitter couldn’t have made alternative apps serve ads if it wanted or needed to.)

At times, Twitter has seemingly recognized the value outside developers added. “3rd party clients have had a notable impact on the Twitter service and the products we built,” read a 2018 memo from Rob Johnson, who was the company’s developer platform lead at the time. “Independent developers built the first Twitter client for Mac and the first native app for iPhone. These clients pioneered product features we all know and love.” And in a 2010 blog post, Twitter said people who used third-party clients were “some of the most active and frequent users, noting that “a disproportionate amount of the traffic from Twitter runs through such tools.”

Despite the praise, the relationship between Twitter and outside developers was often fraught. The company’s developer agreement has had an off-and-on rule barring alternative apps that competed with its official clients, and for years the company introduced new features that it didn’t support in its API, meaning that third-party clients couldn’t have them.

Before Musk took over, however, the company appeared to be making amends. It clarified its rules with the express intent of making things easier for third-party clients, started communicating more, and its API v2 finally gave developers access to features like polls and group DMs. In late 2021, Tapbots co-founder Paul Haddad told me, “the pace of development and open-ness have been significantly improved compared to some of the darker days.” And in 2022, he called the company releasing a v2 version of its home timeline API “an indication that they’re going to continue to allow and even encourage alternative clients.”

It’s not just third-party clients that have made the Twitter experience better. There are several other outside tools that have improved the experience, such as Thread Reader, Block Party or Twitlonger. (Historically, Twitter users relied on a third-party tool called TwitPic to post pictures to the site before that feature was built-in.) Most of those apps appear to still be working, but as we’ve seen, that could change at any time, and Twitter has the ability to prevent you from posting links to them.

Of course, doing so would likely result in massive user backlash and would make the service worse. But based on Twitter’s recent actions, that wouldn’t make it out of the question.

I’m not trying to argue that Twitter has never come up with features on its own, or picked up user suggestions on its own, because it has. (The retweet, hashtag, and @ mention were famously invented by users, sometimes with the help of third-party apps, but Twitter implemented them effectively.) My point is that an ecosystem of third-party apps competing with each other and the official client is going to produce more good ideas than a single company could on its own.

Elon Musk just decided to throw all of that away. Twitter has abruptly cut itself off from that stream of ideas — the stream that produced its apps, some of its most popular features, and much of its core identity. Even if he backtracks, why would developers spend their best ideas on a company that’s burned them so badly?

The next MacBook Air and iMac could come with a 3nm M3 chip

The next MacBook Air and iMac could come with a 3nm M3 chip

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

Apple’s working on a MacBook Air and iMac with an M3 chip built using the more efficient 3-nanometer fabrication process, according to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. While it’s not clear when the two upgraded devices might launch, Gurman expects the M3 chip to arrive later this year or early next year.

Gurman first hinted at this in June of last year, noting that Apple’s working on an M3-equipped 13-inch MacBook Air, 15-inch MacBook Air, and a new iMac. At the time, he added that the M3 chip could appear as early as this year, but that hasn’t happened.

Instead, Apple included the new M2 Pro and M2 Max chips with the lineup of MacBook Pros it announced earlier this month, and also added an M2 Pro chip to the Mac Mini. These chips are based on a second-generation 5nm process, which is still an upgrade from the standard 5nm process Apple uses to fabricate its M1 chips.

The upcoming M3 chip, however, is expected to take things a step further. According to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the company that makes Apple’s chips, the 3nm process can improve speed by up to 15 percent and reduce power consumption by 30 percent when compared to the 5nm process. TSMC began mass-producing 3nm chips at its Taiwan-based facilities last year, but this technology isn’t set to arrive at the manufacturer’s new Arizona fab until 2026.

The MacBook Air and iMac aren’t the only devices that could soon get an M3 upgrade. On the same day Apple announced its new MacBook Pros, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said that Apple could launch another round of MacBook Pro models with new 3nm M3 Pro and M3 Max processors in the first half of 2024. We’ll have to wait a bit longer to see if this rumor pans out, along with Gurman’s prediction that Apple could release a touchscreen Mac in 2025.

TikTok is overrun by amateur sleuths – so which clues should I leave in case I go missing? | Michael Sun

TikTok is overrun by amateur sleuths – so which clues should I leave in case I go missing? | Michael Sun

Everyone from awkward boyfriends to supposedly nefarious fiances are being held to account. The jurors? A million deranged zoomers

If I was a more dedicated podcast listener, I am certain I would be a nutter for true crime, a genre with which I share many core values: a zeal for prying into the lives of total strangers, a generally melodramatic way of talking, an overactive imagination which crafts grand, paranoid narratives from the most quotidian of events. (These are also the traits of anyone who did theatre in high school.)

TikTok, apparently, agrees. When Serial exploded the genre in 2014, the power of amateur sleuths – and the sway they possessed over the real-world results of justice – was still a novelty. Now, nearly a decade on, new mysteries sweep through TikTok at dizzying pace. Everyone from awkward boyfriends to supposedly nefarious fiances are held to account on the platform by users conducting their own frenzied investigations, hoping to catch their suspects cheating, philandering and premeditating. The jurors: a million deranged zoomers. The tone: nothing short of fever pitch – the type that accompanies all good conspiracy theories.

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Marvel’s Avengers development is coming to an end

Marvel’s Avengers development is coming to an end

Image: Square Enix

The development of Marvel’s Avengers is coming to a close. In a blog post, developer Crystal Dynamics announced that the game won’t receive any new updates after March 31st, with support ending on September 30th (via IGN).

While you’ll still be able to play the game in both single-player and multiplayer mode, Crystal Dynamics says it “can’t guarantee that we will be able to address issues that occur” after support ends.

The last — and final — balance update will take place in March, and from then on, all cosmetics, including “every Outfit, Takedown, and Nameplate” will be available for free and without the purchase of credits. Any remaining credits “will be converted into in-game resources,” Crystal Dynamics says. It also provides a chart for the types and number of resources you’ll get based on the credits you have, which you can see below.

Image: Crystal Dynamics

Released a little over two years ago by Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics, Marvel’s Avengers dealt with technical issues and lackluster reviews, with some critics saying the game failed to meet expectations. In 2021, Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda admitted the game “produced a disappointing outcome,” and later sold Crystal Dynamics to the Embrace Group last May. The studio has since scored a deal with Amazon to work on a new addition to the Tomb Raider franchise.

Over the years, Crystal Dynamics added more characters to its lineup, including Black Panther, The Mighty Thor, and Kate Bishop. Marvel’s Avengers’ last update took place in November and saw the addition of the Cloning Lab Omega-Level Threat mission and the Winter Soldier. Unfortunately, Crystal Dynamics says Spider-Man will remain a PlayStation exclusive.

“We know this is disappointing news as everyone in our community has such a connection to these characters and their stories,” Crystal Dynamics’ post reads. “We’re so, so grateful that you came on this adventure with us.”

While users will still be able to purchase used physical copies of Marvel’s Avengers for the PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC after September 30th, the game will no longer be available for purchase online.

First industrial action at Amazon UK hopes to strike at firm’s union hostility

First industrial action at Amazon UK hopes to strike at firm’s union hostility

In Coventry, 300 GMB members plan to down tools over long hours, bad management and a 50p-an-hour pay rise

Amazon workers at a vast depot in Coventry will stage a historic strike on Wednesday – the first time the delivery giant’s UK operations have ever been hit by industrial action.

The immediate cause of the dispute was a 50p-an-hour pay rise offered to warehouse staff in the summer, which many felt was insulting – particularly after they had worked throughout the Covid pandemic.

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Motorola’s viva magenta Edge 30 Fusion is fun, and fun is good

Motorola’s viva magenta Edge 30 Fusion is fun, and fun is good

The special-edition phone celebrates Pantone’s vibrant color of the year.

There’s really no sensible argument for the viva magenta Motorola Edge 30 Fusion. It’s $799 and doesn’t include wireless charging, an IP68 rating, or a telephoto camera. You should get, like, at least two of those things for $800 in 2023. But here’s the thing: it’s fun, and fun is seriously underrated when it comes to smartphones.

A lot of that fun factor has to do with the Edge 30 Fusion’s best and most obvious feature: its color. I think it’s pink, but my sources (a lot of people on Twitter) tell me that it is, in fact, red. And not just any red: viva magenta, the official 2023 Pantone Color of the Year.

Pantone employs some forced alliteration when it says it “vibrates with vim and vigor.” It also apparently “galvanizes our spirit, helping us to build our inner strength.” I’ve been using the phone for a few days, and I can’t say my spirit feels any more or less galvanized, but I did recently muster up the courage to deep clean the inside of my refrigerator. Did my exposure to viva magenta help? Who can say?

I’ve been using the phone for a few days, and I can’t say my spirit feels any more or less galvanized

In any case, this pink phone stands out from most other modern smartphones, whether or not it builds inner strength. At any point in time, there’s a small pile of phones on my desk, and roughly four out of five of them are black. Sometimes a forest green or a midnight blue will enter the mix, but never something as attention-grabbing as viva magenta. It’s a welcome change from the muted rectangles.

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Fun! What a concept!

The magenta edition Edge 30 Fusion also comes with a pair of color-coordinated wireless earbuds. When’s the last time you bought a phone that came with wireless earbuds right in the box? Probably never, that’s when. They’re not exactly top-notch, but they’re surprisingly good.

Noise cancellation is serviceable, and both the phone and buds support Dolby Atmos sound, which claims to provide “clearer dialog, crisper detail, and more engaging sound.” That sounds like some marketing gibberish, but you know what? It is pretty engaging. The sound on an episode of White Lotus felt richer and more immersive as I watched the rich people get immersed in their own problems. Color me impressed.

The Viva Magenta version of the Edge 30 Fusion comes with a color-coordinated pair of wireless earbuds. And they’re not bad!

To sweeten the deal, the back of the Edge 30 Fusion has a leather-like finish, which not only looks nice but also makes the phone easier to hold in one hand. One drawback: the porous surface seems to hang onto strong scents more willingly than an all-glass device. The loaner unit I’ve been using picked up a strong perfume smell somewhere along its path, and it took a few days of airing out to dissipate. I don’t believe that’s a multi-sensory feature of viva magenta; it’s certainly not spirit-galvanizing. Anyway, I asked Motorola about this, and the company hasn’t gotten back to me.

Outside of all the cosmetic stuff, the Edge 30 Fusion is a nice phone, too. It has a Snapdragon 888 Plus processor with snappy performance, a fancy 6.55-inch OLED with 144Hz refresh rate, and fast 68W wired charging (cable and charging brick included). There’s a 50-megapixel stabilized main camera, a 32-megapixel selfie camera with heavy face-smoothing on by default, and a 13-megapixel ultrawide. It’s all very nice, if not the best you can do for the money.

I can say with absolute certainty, though, that it is the viva magenta-est phone you can buy at any price. Carrying around a pink phone for a little while was a lot of fun, and judging from the response when I posted about it on Twitter, a lot of you thought it might be, too. And if you’re not sold on magenta, well, there’s always next year.

Photography by Allison Johnson / The Verge

More details come out on which departments saw layoffs at Google, Microsoft, and Amazon

More details come out on which departments saw layoffs at Google, Microsoft, and Amazon

Amazon’s hexagonal MK27-2 delivery drone | Image: Amazon

Google’s decision to let go of 12,000 employees was only just announced on Friday, but it extended the recent trend of the “Big Tech” companies cutting jobs in previously unheard-of numbers, and now we’ve seen more reports about where those cuts happened.

The Information reports that at Google, layoffs spread through nearly every group, including projects like Chrome, Search, Android, and Google Cloud. Its sources said they affected people who’d previously received “high performance reviews” and some managers making anywhere from $500K to $1 million.

One area of the search and advertising giant that was “relatively unaffected,” however, was the Google Brain division run by Jeff Dean, the senior vice president of research and artificial intelligence. That’s the team developing the machine learning tech Google is already using in many areas. According to the New York Times, its work will also be applied to a number of products we’ll reportedly see at its I/O event in May, including tools to generate images, a YouTube green screen feature, and at some point this year, a chatbot version of its search engine.

Google confirmed to Bloomberg that it decided “to wind down the majority of the Area 120 team.” That incubator, named for Google’s famed but long-dormant policy of allowing employees 20 percent of their time to chase side projects, had already seen large cuts affecting half of its projects late last year. The company said three projects will be folded into Google while the rest appear to be gone.

It sounds like 343's Halo Infinite campaign team got hit hard. In an email to staff, studio head Pierre Hintze wrote that "we've made the difficult decision to restructure elements of our team, which means some roles are being eliminated." https://t.co/GhjZLz6m7V

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) January 18, 2023

At Microsoft, where 10,000 people are being laid off, Polygon points out reports of the effects on several game development studios and the responses from some former employees. According to Bloomberg, there were cuts at Starfield developer Bethesda, and reporter Jason Schreier said in a tweet that its Halo studio 343 Industries was reportedly “hit hard.” At the same time, Kotaku noted that The Coalition, which works on the Gears of War games, was also affected.

Amazon confirmed to us months ago that its layoffs included jobs in the devices and services division. Then, in early January, hardware chief Dave Limp said on CNBC’s TechCheck that the cuts affected nearly 2,000 people in his division, which is home to products like Alexa and its Echo smart home devices. Projects confirmed dropped included its video-calling device for kids and telehealth service.

This week, CNBC reports the layoffs also include a “significant number” of employees working on the Prime Air drone delivery project at multiple sites, including its headquarters, and, according to a since-deleted LinkedIn post, as much as half the team at its Pendleton, Oregon test site. Originally announced by Jeff Bezos in 2013, the program is seeing those cuts just as it starts to roll out testing in a few cities and prepares to launch the next-generation MK30 drone that will follow up the earlier MK27-2 unit shown above.

Amazon declined to say to CNBC how many people in the division had been laid off.

Drop Sense75 review: a $350 keyboard without $350 of quality

Drop Sense75 review: a $350 keyboard without $350 of quality

Sanding down those rough edges doesn’t come cheap.

Drop has become a popular retailer of keyboard components like keycaps, but it also has a lineup of fully assembled models for anyone who wants something that’ll just work out of the box. These include the $99 ENTR, $200 CTRL, and $250 SHIFT. Its latest model, the Sense75, is a little different.

With its gasket-mount design, thick double-shot DCX keycaps, and compatibility with the VIA keymapping software, the Sense75 hits all the latest buzzwords to be a premium keyboard for discerning enthusiasts. And its starting price — $349 for the fully assembled version in black — leaves little doubt about the kind of customer that Drop is targeting here.

That’s a lot to spend on a keyboard, and it gives you the right to scrutinize every last detail of the Sense75. But it’s scrutiny that the keyboard is never quite able to withstand.

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With its subdued colors, the Sense75 could almost pass for an office keyboard when you disable its RGB, but that’s only really half true. After all, the Sense75 offers a familiar combination of current mechanical keyboard design trends, including a 75 percent layout, gasket-mount design, and of course, the increasingly standard issue volume knob. Feature parity is no bad thing, but it also means Drop has its work cut out if it wants to distinguish itself from competing keyboards like the GMMK Pro and Keychron Q1.

I’ve been using the fully assembled black model of the Sense75, which Drop sells for $349, but there are a couple of different versions available. The keyboard’s fully assembled white variant sells for $399, and it’s also available as a bare-bones model without switches or keycaps for $249 in black or $299 in white.

That’s expensive, considering that the Keychron Q1 has an identical layout and nearly identical features — including a gasket mounting system, RGB lighting, and hot-swap sockets — but costs just shy of $180 with keycaps and switches (it’s our current recommendation for the best premium keyboard). There’s an argument that Drop’s keyboard includes as standard the kinds of premium aftermarket components that you might use to upgrade Keychron’s keyboard, though admittedly only if you want the specific components that Drop is offering.

There’s only one choice of switch here — Holy Panda X.

Obviously the keyboard includes a volume dial.

Visually, the Sense75 compares well to the Keychron Q1. Its appearance is crisp and well-considered, and like the Keychron, there’s no distracting branding on the top of the keyboard. Around the volume dial, there’s no awkward square like you see on most of Keychron’s Q-series boards. At a little over 3.1 pounds (1.42kg), the keyboard feels weighty and solid, and I struggle to point out a single rough edge. I’m a big fan of this clean look.

This understated design extends to the Sense75’s RGB lighting. Most mechanical keyboards offer some kind of RGB lighting at this point, which normally shines upwards around (and often through) their keycaps. But while the Sense75 has both per-key RGB lighting as well as an external light strip, its keycaps are entirely opaque, and its external lighting points downwards, meaning that you can’t see evidence of either when they’re turned off. Great news for RGB haters.

As standard, the keyboard comes with a set of Drop’s DCX keycaps, which retail for $99 as a standalone set. I wrote about Drop’s keycap design last year, but the short version is that they represent the company’s attempt to compete with GMK, which produces what many enthusiasts believe to be the gold standard of aftermarket keycaps. That means Drop’s keycaps use thick, high-quality ABS plastic and a double-shot construction with fantastically crisp lettering. The keen-eyed will spot small inconsistencies (my editor Nathan Edwards immediately clocked that the lettering on the left Shift key almost reads “Shif t”), but they’re far better than Keychron’s stock keycaps and are among the best you’ll find on an off-the-shelf keyboard.

The keyboard’s DCX keycaps are among the best around.

While Keychron’s boards (even its affordable sub-$100 K-series models) come with both Mac and Windows keycaps in the box, the Sense75 ships with just Windows keycaps. If you’d like the keyboard to have Command and Option keys rather than Alt and “Super” (Drop’s version of the Windows key), you can spend an additional $25 for the Mac keycaps addon. The process of actually flipping the keyboard between its Windows and Mac compatibility modes is handled with a keyboard shortcut rather than the simple hardware toggle Keychron uses. But unless you need to switch between the two operating systems on a regular basis, it’s a fiddle you’ll rarely encounter.

A big advantage the more affordable fully assembled Keychron Q1 has over the Sense75 is that it’s available with three different switch types. The Sense75 has just one switch option: Drop’s Holy Panda X switches. There’s no option for linear or clicky red or blue switches or less tactile browns. Arguably that’s the point of the Sense75’s barebones version. But if you were to buy the barebones version of the keyboard in black ($249) plus a set of white-on-black DCX keycaps ($99), you’d be spending the same amount as the fully assembled model with no cash left over for switches. It doesn’t look like a great deal.

Meanwhile, if you were to buy the barebones version of the Keychron Q1 and then add the same Holy Panda X switches and Drop DCX keycaps included as standard with the Sense75, you’d be looking at around $365: $161 for the keyboard, $99 for the keycaps, and $105 for the switches. (That last number is a bit misleading, though: Drop is the only vendor for Holy Panda X switches, which it sells for $1 each and only in packs of 35, which means you have to buy three packs to cover a 75 percent board. This is almost comically user-hostile, but there are plenty of nice switches out there for much less money.) This setup gets you a very similar keyboard for not that much more money, plus a complete set of switches and keycaps that could always be repurposed for a future board.

Drop includes a good quality keycap and switch puller in the box.

Underglow RGB lighting mean light strips aren’t visible when it’s turned off.

In fairness to Drop, if you had to choose just one set of switches to ship with a keyboard, you could do a lot worse than the Holy Panda X, and their larger tactile bump feels great here. There’s a thunk to them that you don’t get with brown or linear switches, and combined with the aluminum case and plate, the keyboard feels chunky and solid to type on without any of the high-pitched pinging sounds you can sometimes get from metal cases, thanks to gratuitous use of dampening foam.

And yet, side by side with a Keychron keyboard, I far prefer the Keychron Q1. Although both are gasket-mounted, meaning their switch plates are suspended between strips of squishy foam to give it a little bit of give and bounce as you type, Drop’s keyboard doesn’t have nearly the same amount of flex. It gives the Sense75 a stiffer feel compared to the Keychron that doesn’t exactly scream “gasket mount.”

Drop’s PCB-mounted stabilizers (the mechanism that sits under long keys to stop them rattling) are also far more rattly than Keychron’s out of the box. While the space bar on the Q1 has a nice pop sound to it, the Sense75 rattles in a way that doesn’t exactly scream “$349 keyboard.” Overall, it means the typing experience only ever ends up feeling “okay” rather than “great,” and I prefer the feel of Keychron’s sub-$200 Q1.

The Sense75’s case is weighty and thick.

As well as a lack of switch choices, there’s also no option to get the keyboard with a European ISO layout. This is an ANSI- (read: US-) only board. The Sense75’s switches are south-facing for better compatibility with aftermarket keycaps, and the PCB’s sockets are 5-pin for maximum compatibility. Opening up the keyboard is relatively easy, with just six screws on the underside of the case to unscrew.

The Sense75 also supports remapping, but it’s a bit of a weird thing to get set up. The good news is that you can use the excellent VIA software to remap the keyboard’s keys, set up macros, and adjust the keyboard’s lighting. The bad news is that you’ll need to flash special VIA-enabled firmware onto the keyboard before it’ll support the VIA app. That’s because the keyboard’s stock firmware is designed for use with Drop’s own configurator tool, which isn’t currently compatible with the Sense75. Support is due to go live next month, but I wasn’t able to test the functionality as part of my review.

A final note on accessories: In the Sense75’s box, you get a keycap puller, switch puller, and USB-C cable alongside the keyboard. The pullers are nice. The switch puller has a far larger grip than Keychron’s, which should make it easier on the hands if you ever want to remove the Sense75’s dozens of switches. But the keyboard’s detachable USB-C cable is a bizarrely short 100cm (around 40in) in length, and I had to use an extension cable to get it to look tidy with my desk setup. For comparison, the cable included with my Keychron Q2 was a much more comfortable 180cm (around 70in) in length.

Any Drop branding is kept to the underside of the keyboard.

The Sense75 is available in white as well as black.

The Drop Sense75 sits in a bit of an awkward part of the mechanical keyboard market. It’s not that it’s the most expensive keyboard ever sold. But with a starting price of $349, it’s mainly competing against DIY models that you assemble yourself at home, where there’s an expectation that most people will do a certain amount of tinkering and modding to get the exact sound and feel they want.

Meanwhile, Keychron’s Q1 offers very similar specs to the Sense75 for under $200, and I think it’s a nicer typing experience to book. Admittedly the Q1’s stock keycaps are nowhere near as nice as the Sense75’s, but with the money saved, you could buy a set of Drop DCX keycaps — or GMK or MT3 or really any aftermarket keycap set — and still have money left over. Or if you’re prepared to sacrifice build quality but still want VIA programmability, you can spend under $100 on Keychron’s V1 (our current pick for the best keyboard available for most people). Or you could get a wireless keyboard from Epomaker or Ajazz for under $200.

With its fantastically clean design, high-quality stock keycaps, and tasteful underglow RGB lighting, the Sense75 looks every bit as nice as its price point suggests it should. But a combination of rattly stabilizers and stiff gasket means it never quite ends up feeling it, and hobbyists will likely still have some tinkering to do to get the exact feel they want. The Sense75 works out of the box, but I wouldn’t say it feels or behaves like a $350 keyboard out of the box.

Photography by Jon Porter / The Verge

Twitter hit by 40% revenue drop amid ad squeeze, say reports

Twitter hit by 40% revenue drop amid ad squeeze, say reports

More than 500 advertising clients have reportedly paused spending since Elon Musk’s takeover in October

Twitter remains in the grip of an advertising squeeze, with the social media platform hit by a 40% drop in revenue after more than 500 clients paused their spending, according to reports.

The company’s daily revenue was down 40% year-over-year, the tech newsletter the Platformer reported, while the news site the Information said staff were told more than 500 of Twitter’s top advertisers had halted spending since Elon Musk bought it in October.

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Twitter will stop forcing you onto its ‘For You’ timeline

Twitter will stop forcing you onto its ‘For You’ timeline

Soon you may be able to more-or-less set one of the tabs as default.

Twitter’s next update should make it less insistent that you use the “For You” algorithmic timeline, according to a tweet from Elon Musk. He says the app will “stop switching you back to recommended tweets,” and remember if you left it on the reverse-chronological “Following” timeline or a pinned list.

Musk’s promises should be taken with a grain of salt, but I hope the company delivers on this one. Until last month, Twitter had a button that let you set a preference on which version of the timeline you wanted to use. That option went away when the company rolled out a UI that let you swipe between the two timelines, with the app defaulting to opening on the algorithmic one.

Next Twitter update will remember whether you were on For You (ie recommended), Following or list you made & stop switching you back to recommended tweets

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 21, 2023

Musk also says users will get the ability to arrange the top bar at some point, creating a custom order for the “For You” and “Following” tabs, as well as any pinned lists you have.

TikTok confirms that its own employees can decide what goes viral

TikTok confirms that its own employees can decide what goes viral

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

TikTok has confirmed to Forbes that some of its US employees have the ability to boost videos in order to “introduce celebrities and emerging creators to the TikTok community.” The statement comes as part of a report about TikTok’s “Heating” button, which Forbes says can be used to put selected videos onto users’ For You pages, helping boost views by sidestepping the algorithm that supposedly drives the TikTok experience.

Jamie Favazza, a spokesperson for TikTok, told Forbes that increasing views to particular videos isn’t the only reason for heating. TikTok will also “promote some videos to help diversify the content experience” (read: make sure your feed isn’t entirely made up of one or two trends), he said. Favazza also suggests TikTok doesn’t do it that often, claiming only “.002% of videos in For You feeds” are heated. According to an internal document obtained by Forbes, however, heated videos reportedly make up “around 1-2 percent” of “total daily video views.”

TikTok’s heating can make creators and brands feel like they’re winning at the platform

Heated videos don’t come with a label to show that they’ve been boosted by TikTok like ads or sponsored posts do, according to the report. Instead, they appear like any other videos that the algorithm would’ve selected for you.

The news isn’t necessarily a surprise. There have been reports for years that TikTok used promises of promoted content to convince politicians and businesses to use its platform, and companies, especially in the music industry, have made no secret of using the platform to promote their brands.

TikTok would also be far from the only social media company to boost videos unnaturally. Facebook allegedly knew it was showing inflated view counts and didn’t fix it right away to help entice advertisers and media companies to its platform. (It ended up paying $40 million to settle a lawsuit over the issue.) While that’s not exactly the same scenario — TikTok videos do actually seem to get genuine views, even if they’re not going viral organically — the effect could be similar; people end up thinking that they’ll do better on TikTok than they actually will.

It also means that TikTok is picking winners and losers: creators and brands may lose a spot on someone’s For You page to someone that has a tighter relationship with the company. According to Forbes, there have been incidents where employees heated content they shouldn’t have, promoting videos from friends, partners, and even their own accounts.

Creators might also lose interest in the platform if their videos underperform compared to ones that are being boosted, as TikTok’s lack of transparency around heating makes it hard to tell which videos got to the top organically.

The report comes as TikTok is facing heavy competition from platforms like YouTube, which has recently started enticing creators by giving them a cut of ad revenue made off Shorts, and Instagram’s push to pay creators for Reels (though the latter admitted on Friday that it’s recently been pushing video too hard). Meanwhile, TikTok has a selective creators fund and a very limited ad-sharing model, which could give its competitors a leg up.