The LG Gram Style might be the prettiest laptop of 2023
Where’s the touchpad?
For the past few years, I’ve been a big fan of the LG Gram 17. It’s got great battery life, a massive screen, and it feels like it weighs basically nothing. But if there’s one hesitation I sometimes have about the line, it’s the aesthetic. The Grams of the past have just looked a bit... boring. Which is fine — many laptops are — but also means there’s a fashion-conscious audience out there they potentially aren’t reaching.
Enter the LG Gram Style. This, as the name implies, might be the first LG laptop I’ve ever seen that I’d really consider calling “stylish.” It’s unbelievably thin, it’s mind-blowingly light, and it’s covered in a lustrous color-changing finish. My hands-on time with this device was in LG’s very dimly lit booth at CES 2023, but it was certainly one of the most unique-looking laptops I’ve had the opportunity to try so far this year.
That does not mean that this is a laptop that will work for everyone. But it’s certainly one that might turn heads at the coffee shop. And it’s a bold new look for an established line, which is always fun to watch unfold.
This looks silvery-white-ish when not under this colored light.
Looks like a sunset, maybe?
The first thing to talk about is that finish. It’s iridescent, changing color depending on lighting and viewing angle. In LG’s words, the laptops “shine and shift dynamically; moving and changing depending on the light and angle.”
Up close, this looks like a silvery white. But I can confirm that as I moved the device around, it flashed and signed in different hues, looking blueish and even orange at times. I wish I’d been able to better capture that on camera — again, a challenge with the lighting.
I had to try several times to get this shot before the lights disappeared.
That luster extends to the bottom part of the Style’s keyboard deck, which is one smooth surface — there is no touchpad visible. There is a touchpad under there, in the location where you’d expect a touchpad to be, but it’s haptic and hidden.
We’re seeing more and more of these types of trackpads on laptops this year, and they generally help companies get them thinner (which remains a major draw of the Gram line). Dell’s XPS 13 Plus also had a hidden touchpad last year, and I had mixed results with it. In general, my right hand (I’m right-handed) knew where to click from experience without needing the touchpad delineated, but my less experienced left hand had misclicks here and there when it needed to sub in.
What the Gram Style does have (that the XPS 13 Plus didn’t) is LEDs around the touchpad that illuminate after you touch the area. They stay on for what can’t be more than a few seconds after you click, and then they disappear. So, I mean, that’s better than nothing, but still doesn’t help you find the thing when you need to click it. The lights do look pretty, though. I’m not sure why there couldn’t be an option to leave them on.
See? Thin.
A third very pretty thing: the screen. Each Style model (there’s 14-inch and a 16-inch options) has a 16:10 OLED display, and despite the odd lighting, they looked great in LG’s demo area. The keyboard was also fun, with quite a nice click. I like Gram keyboards in general, but there’s always a worry that a super thin laptop might not have room for great switches.
Oh, and this thing is so light. It’s one of those devices that messes with your mind when you pick it up. At 2.2 pounds (999 grams), you could fool me into thinking that this was an empty chassis. That’s nothing new for LG laptops but is a nice assurance that the Style, despite its various oddities, remains very much a part of the Gram line.
One other hot tip: There are even wilder designs coming. LG had a bunch of patterned Gram Style lids on display — purples, pinks, polka dots galore — and was taking a poll at their booth where attendees could vote for their favorite one. Representatives claim that the company will bring the winner to market. I voted for the purple one, so I hope that one wins. Stay tuned.
The best laptop deals you can get right now
The MacBook Air equipped with Apple’s M1 processor is our favorite affordable laptop and is often on sale. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
If you want a great laptop, you’re going to have to fork over a ton of money, right? Not necessarily. There are dozens of good laptops on the market at various price points. However, it can feel overwhelming to find the right one for your needs (some are better suited for, say, college students, whereas others are ideal for gamers).
That’s why we’ve come up with this list of some of the best laptop deals available right now. In addition to the latest discounts, we’ll share each discounted model’s best features (and downsides) to give you more clarity during your shopping journey. And if you need to do more research, you can also check out our guides to the best laptops on the market and the top cheap laptops as well.
We consider the newest MacBook Air with Apple’s M2 processor to be the best laptop for most people, one that offers all-day battery life and a combination of features that should more than suffice for the average user. Plus, Apple’s new MacBook is powerful enough that it can even handle some light gaming and even demanding photo and video editing apps like Photoshop and Adobe Premiere. It’s also faster than its predecessor thanks to Apple’s new M2 chip and offers a 1080p webcam, which is a welcome improvement given the disappointing camera on the 2020 M1 model. It’s much lighter and thus more portable as well, yet it retains features like MagSafe charging and Touch ID, as well as a nice display.
While a terrific laptop overall, there is one key area where Apple’s M1 model is better: storage. The base M2 MacBook Air with 256GB of storage is actually slower than its predecessor because it’s stored in a single NAND chip. Also, be aware as well that port selection isn’t great, and the included display notch — which is also found on both the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros — can make using the menu bar more challenging.
If that doesn’t bother you, however, we’re currently seeing a good discount on the M2- powered MacBook Air. Now through January 22nd, Costco is selling the laptop in select colors with 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, an eight-core CPU and GPU, and a 30W power brick for $999.99 ($150 off), though this deal is available to members only. If you’re not a member, you can either pay a five percent surcharge (so $57.50 extra) or buy the same model from B&H Photo for $1,149 ($50 off). B&H is also selling the same configuration in silver with a 10-core GPU for $1,199 ($100 off), or you can buy the silver model at Adorama with an eight-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 8GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and a 30W power brick starting at $1,349 ($150 off).
For a cheaper alternative to our favorite laptop for most, look to the base MacBook Air with the M1 chip, which is the best cheap laptop. Like its successor, it offers everything you need. It’s also faster than most Windows laptops at this price point, and handles demanding photo and video editing apps like Photoshop and Adobe Premiere with finesse, especially compared to its Intel-powered predecessors. Thankfully, all that power doesn’t come at the cost of battery life either. While not as good as the M2 model’s, we found that it lasted between eight and ten hours — even when we played the game Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
In addition to offering excellent performance, the laptop also comes with other nice-to-have features, including a comfortable keyboard and an excellent trackpad. Just note its 720p webcam isn’t particularly good, so if a high-resolution webcam matters a lot to you, you may want to buy one separately. Also, be aware that, due to the limitations of the M1 chip, you can only use one external display at a time and port selection is also limited.
Right now, you can buy the M1-powered MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage in select colors at Amazon, B&H Photo, and Adorama for $899 ($100 off).
At the moment, the MacBook Pro lineup consists of the newer 14- and 16-inch models released in late 2021 and the 13-inch MacBook Pro that just saw a revision with the M2 processor in mid-2022.
The new 13-inch MacBook Pro is similar to the M2 MacBook Air but geared toward more demanding use cases. It’s equipped with an M2 processor, unlike its predecessor, but still offers a fan and excellent performance that slightly outshines the M2 Air. Its battery — which we struggled to drain — remains one of its more impressive features, one that allows for up to 18 hours of usage on a single charge. Unfortunately, the laptop still suffers from the same outdated design (and Touch Bar) from 2016, as well as a mediocre, 720p webcam. Plus, there’s no MagSafe charging and you only get a pair of USB-C ports.
Regularly $1,299, the 256GB M2-equipped MacBook Pro with an eight-core CPU and 10-core GPU is on sale at Amazon, B&H Photo, and Best Buy for $1,149 ($150 off). The 512GB is also marked down by $150 and selling for around $1,349 at Amazon and Best Buy.
On the other hand, the new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros are equipped with faster M1 Pro processors, and you can go up to an M1 Max CPU if you’d like to spend more money for even faster performance. They offer a nice selection of ports as well, including multiple Thunderbolt 4 ports and a MagSafe power connector. No matter what you get, these laptops boast incredible performance with some of the longest-lasting batteries we’ve tested yet.
Right now, the 14-inch model with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage is on sale for $1,599 ($400 off) in silver at Best Buy. You can also buy the M1 Pro model with 1TB of storage for $2,099 instead of $2,499 at Best Buy and Amazon. If you prefer the 16-inch model, you can get it with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD for the same price ($400 off) at Amazon and Best Buy.
Lenovo’s 14-inch Yoga 9i is our favorite laptop for multimedia entertainment. The convertible is equipped with fantastic speakers that deliver the best sound we’ve ever heard for a laptop this size. It also has an excellent 1080p touchscreen and other perks, including a built-in stylus and a battery life that will last all day. Just note, however, that it does come with bloatware that can be challenging to uninstall, and we found the 16:9 screen relatively cramped and dim.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano is the lightest ThinkPad you can currently buy from Lenovo, yet it still offers great performance in a light package. With its exceptional build quality, along with business-targeted security and management features, we think it’s particularly ideal for business travel. Other features we liked include its 16:10 display and the physical privacy shutter for its webcam, although we wished there were more ports and the battery life was less than average.
Right now, Lenovo is selling the ThinkPad X1 Nano for $1,309.50 instead of $2,619 when you use promo code BYOTHINKP2023 and buy the model with 16GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and an Intel Core i5 processor.
Asus’ entry-level ROG Zephyrus G14 is currently our favorite laptop for gaming on the go. It’s powerful yet it also boasts all-day battery life, which is unusual for a gaming laptop. It also features a solid webcam and a bright, 16:10 QHD display, though we wish it didn’t cap out at 120hz. We also enjoyed using the keyboard and had no complaints about the port selection. It’s chunky for a 14-inch laptop, sure, but if you’re a gamer who often travels or commutes, it’s relatively lightweight and thus could be a good buy.
Regularly $1,649.99, you can currently buy the Zephyrus G14 with an AMD Ryzen 9 processor, 16GB of memory, and 1TB of storage for $1,199.99 ($450 off) at Best Buy.
LG deals
LG Gram 15
LG’s Gram 15 laptop is the smaller, 15-inch version of the 17-inch LG Gram 17, which we think is the best laptop for fans of big screens. While we haven’t tested the LG Gram 15, we have reviewed the 17-inch model, which we found to be a powerful yet quiet laptop boasting a good 12-hour battery life and a terrific keyboard. The 15-inch IPS display features a lower 1920 x 1080 resolution than the 17-inch one, but also shares a backlit keyboard, high-capacity battery, a decent port selection, and is lightweight so you should be able to lug it about easily. Plus, it’s cheaper than the 17-inch version.
The Acer Aspire 5 is a good budget-friendly laptop to consider. The 15.6-inch laptop doesn't offer Thunderbolt support, but it does feature a wide port selection that includes one USB 3.1 Type-C Gen 1, two USB 3.1 Gen 1, one USB 2.0, one HDMI 2.0, one Ethernet, and a power port. The affordable laptop also features a terrific backlit keyboard that’s comfortable to use and sound quality that punches above its weight class.
There are trade-offs, of course. The battery life is quite poor — the Intel model we tested only lasted around five hours — and it’s loaded with some bloatware. The touchpad can also be hard to use, and the sheer width of the laptop means it might be challenging to store in a backpack. Still, if you just need a laptop that gets the job done, the Aspire 5 is on sale in various configurations and processors at Amazon. Right now, for instance, you can buy it with 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and a Ryzen 5 5500U processor for $449.89 instead of $529.99.
Flutes, synths, a human voice – how should electric vehicles sound?
As Australia looks to the US and Europe on electric vehicle safety rules, carmakers are experimenting with sounds that will effectively warn pedestrians
Take a walk down any busy street and the noise can hit like a speaker accidentally left on full volume. The growls of engines accelerating when the traffic light turns green, motorbikes vying for position in the traffic, buses whizzing past and the odd rev-head all compete to be heard.
The sound generated by the internal combustion engine has shaped urban life for a century but that is gradually going to change: by 2050, 90% of cars in Australia will be electric.
Hackers reportedly leak email addresses of more than 200 million Twitter users
Information posted on a hacking forum in ‘one of the most significant’ breaches of users’ email addresses and phone numbers
Hackers stole the email addresses of more than 200 million Twitter users and posted them on an online hacking forum, a security researcher said Wednesday.
The breach “will unfortunately lead to a lot of hacking, targeted phishing and doxxing”, Alon Gal, co-founder of Israeli cybersecurity monitoring firm Hudson Rock, wrote on LinkedIn. He called it “one of the most significant leaks I’ve seen”.
Razer Blade 16 hands-on: a dream gaming laptop
Wait until you see the screen.
Razer has given us a first look at the Razer Blade 16 and Razer Blade 18, which will be released in the next few months. And I will say right now: I am impressed.
The Blade 18 is the biggest and most powerful Razer Blade that has ever been released, which is neat in itself. But I’m actually even more excited about the Blade 16, which is debuting some never-before-seen on a Razer Blade.
That’s some COLOR.
First, there’s a Mini LED screen. And it looks great. On the screen, some shades looked blindingly bright against black backdrops, where they might’ve looked washed out on other gaming displays. Black areas, speaking of, looked gorgeously black.
Next to the Blade 16 model in its demo area, Razer actually had a separate panel made of Mini LEDs that mirrored what the Blade 16 was doing. When local dimming zones brightened and dimmed on the Blade, the corresponding diodes brightened and dimmed on the panel. (I know it’s hard to picture, but you can see what I’m talking about in the photo below.) We were told that the Blade 16’s screen had 1,000 local dimming zones, and that feels like a big number on paper — but this panel really highlighted (heh) just how many teensy, independent lights are crammed into that laptop, and how much work they’re all doing.
We weren’t actually able to play any titles on these Blade models, since they were pre-production units — Razer only showed us a video of game footage. This meant I was not able to try the intriguing toggle feature (which allows you to easily swap between 4K/120Hz and 1920 x 1200/240Hz modes), but my colleague Cameron Faulkner wrote about that earlier today if you want to know more.
Here’s the Blade 16 with the little dot panel beside it. Each of those little dots is a local dimming zone that can brighten and dim independently.
I’m also thrilled — thrilled, I tell you — that these laptops have 16:10 screens; it really does make the 16-inch panel seem endless compared to Blades that I’ve used in the past. As a bonus, the taller screen makes for a longer chassis, which gave Razer room for a large 95.2Wh battery — which, with all the fancy screen features this device needs to power, may be a real necessity.
I was also able to take the keyboard and touchpad for a spin, and I can confirm that they are the same old large, sturdy keyboard and touchpad that we’ve seen on Razer Blades past. Inside, configurations come with Intel’s 13th-Gen Core i9-13950HX and up to Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4090 graphics. The Blade 16 starts at $2,699.99.
Now, all of these additions do come with a grand total of one change that I consider a compromise. That’s the size. The Blade 16 is 5.4 pounds and 13.98 x 9.61 x 0.87 inches. That’s almost a full pound heavier and over a tenth of an inch thicker than last year’s Blade 15 (which this isn’t replacing, per se, but they’re clearly in a similar category).
This is a heavy device; it was a pain for me to lift up, and it certainly doesn’t feel quite as slim and sleek as the Blade 15 did last year. But that’s a compromise some folks will be willing to make in order to get this Mini LED screen (as well as the improved performance the Blade 16 brings), and that’s fair enough.
Snap’s shutting down the app that put cool filters on your Zoom calls
When you open the app, it shows an announcement saying it’ll no longer be available.
On January 25th, Snap will be shutting down its camera app for Mac and PCs. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, you may remember it as the program that let you apply silly filters to your face while you were on Zoom or other video conference calls. It’s also, as Verge alum Billy Disney pointed out on Mastodon, the reason a boss accidentally showed up to a work meeting as a potato in 2020:
my boss turned herself into a potato on our Microsoft teams meeting and can’t figure out how to turn the setting off, so she was just stuck like this the entire meeting pic.twitter.com/uHLgJUOsXk
Snap announced the change on its support page for Snap Camera, saying that it’ll “no longer be available to use or download” later this month. While the company points out that you can still access a wide array of Snapchat filters on the web version of the app, that’s not quite the same as being able to show up to your next daily standup using the dog filter.
Snap Camera was introduced in 2018, with the company pitching it as a way to spice up your Twitch streams. But it really came into its own as the pandemic started, when many people suddenly found themselves in video calls all day and got tired of staring at an unfiltered version of themselves. Snap’s fortunes have turned since then, though — in 2022, the company laid off 20 percent of its employees, and canceled projects like its Pixy drone.
Snap didn’t immediately reply to The Verge’s request for comment on why it was discontinuing Snap Camera. Part of the reason may be that it’s no longer as essential as it once was. Not only have many companies returned to in-person work, making video conferencing less of an everyday affair, but video chat apps have also been building in their own filters. Zoom has long let you dress up as an animal, or apply bizarre facial effects, and on Thursday it announced it was adding customizable human avatars as well. Perhaps it’s a bit too soon to compare the feature to Snap’s Bitmoji.
OLED plus E Ink: Lenovo’s ThinkBook Twist is halfway to my dream laptop
Image: Lenovo
Last month, I spent 15 whole minutes hunched over an HP Spectre x360 in a drafty Best Buy store — agonizing over whether its amazing OLED screen would destroy the laptop’s battery life and repeatedly googling for the answer. When I found out the answer was “yes, substantially less battery,” I had to walk away.
But why should I have to choose between a great screen and one I use all day? Why not both? That’s the idea behind the ThinkBook Plus Twist, a new laptop that Lenovo’s announcing at CES 2023.
Not only does it have a 13.3-inch, 400-nit, 60Hz 2.8K OLED touchscreen that covers 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut, you can swivel its screen around to reveal another 12-inch, color E Ink touchscreen around back — one that refreshes 12 times a second (12Hz), which definitely felt slow in a demo but isn’t bad for E Ink technology.
Image: Lenovo
Party in the front, business in the back. Also, a 1080p webcam with a shutter, two mics, and a fingerprint reader.
In case you need a refresher, E Ink is an ultra-low-power screen tech, thanks to dye-filled microcapsules that largely stay stable, continually displaying an image until you refresh the screen to show something else instead. They’re used in e-readers like the Amazon Kindle that measure their battery life in months instead of hours but can’t display many colors or offer smooth refresh rates.
But with Lenovo’s laptop, they don’t necessarily need to — because you’ve also got that glorious OLED panel on the other side. As a writer who sometimes needs my laptop to go a full workday and beyond but also sometimes watches video, this could be the best of both worlds: Windows on E Ink for reading and writing, Windows on OLED for everything else.
Image: Lenovo
The E-ink side supports a pen, too.
Just don’t expect Kindle battery life out of a laptop like this since you’ve got the overhead of running Windows on its 13th Gen Intel processor (and up to 16GB of RAM and 1TB of PCIe Gen 4 storage) rather than a simple e-reader chip. Lenovo’s estimating up to 21 hours of battery life from its 56Wh battery using the E Ink screen, and it isn’t providing context about what kind of content can run for 21 hours at a time.
This also isn’t quite my next laptop because it’s lacking any full-size ports, with just a pair of Thunderbolt 4 USB-C jacks and a 3.5mm audio jack to its name, and I hesitate to buy a laptop with a squared-off front edge that’ll likely dig into my wrists... plus the OLED screen should probably be a high-refresh-rate 120Hz 16:10 panel like the ones that Asus is shipping if you really want my money.
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 also 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 the discounts don’t rival those we saw during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but some models — including the third-gen Echo Dot and second-gen Echo Show 5 — are still available at a steep discount.
Best Amazon Echo deals
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 on sale for $24.99 ($15 off) at Amazon and Best Buy. As for the fifth-gen model, it’s currently on sale at Best Buy, Lowe’s, and Amazon for $34.99 ($15 off) with up to six months of Amazon Music Unlimited.
If you’re looking to upgrade, Amazon 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 $44.99 ($15 off).
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 enhancments found on the standard model.
If you want to buy the newest, kid-centric Echo Dot, it’s available at Amazon, Best Buy, and Kohl’s right now for $44.99 (about $15 more than its best price to date).
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 six months of Amazon Music Unlimited for $74.99 ($25 off), which remains one of the speaker’s best prices to date.
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. Unfortunately, however, it’s currently only available at Target, Best Buy, and Amazon for its usual asking price of $199.99. Like with other Echo devices, the latter retailer is also offering six months of Amazon Music Unlimited for free with each purchase.
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 and Best Buy in blue, black, or white for $44.99 ($40 off), which is nearly an all-time low on the capable smart display.
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 to just $44.99 ($50 off), which nearly matches the smart display’s best price to date.
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 $69.99 ($60 off), which is merely $10 less than the smart speaker’s current sale price at Amazon, Best Buy, and Kohl’s. Amazon is also offering the second-gen model with six months of Amazon Music Unlimited, though the retailer doesn’t stipulate how to qualify for the latter promotion.
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.
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, Target, and Best Buy for $249.99, its full retail price and $80 more than its sale price during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
The BMW i Vision Dee is a future EV sport sedan that can talk back to you
The BMW i Vision Dee is basically KITT with a kidney grille. | Image: BMW
KITT with a kidney grille? With a minimalist design, a HUD across the whole windshield, and a digital assistant that talks back, this could be the most polarizing BMW concept yet.
Everyone always has something to say about BMW.
The Bavarian automaker has long had a knack for setting the benchmarks with cars like the 3 Series and X5, but when the vehicles change with the times, BMW’s superfans don’t hold their tongues.
Now, at CES 2023, a new BMW concept asks: what if the car had something to say as well? And if a car could talk, how would it interact with its user?
This is the BMW i Vision Dee, which stands for “Digital Emotional Experience.” It’s one of BMW’s most radical — yet, in some ways, plausible — concept cars in years. It’s a minimalist electric performance sedan that leans hard into digital features like augmented reality and voice-driven virtual assistants. Think the metaverse or Amazon Alexa but in sport sedan form. The concept also offers the ability to create a driver avatar profile, which can even be projected onto the side window.
More than that, the i Vision Dee’s color-shifting grille is like a “face” with its own expressions on top of the virtual voice. This is a BMW that talks back and may even have hot takes of its own. “My father was an E30,” is one thing the car said to me at a recent tech demonstration, and early social media promos for the concept evoked the ‘80s talking car action show Knight Rider.
“The headlights and the closed BMW kidney grille also form a common phygital (fusion of physical and digital) icon on a uniform surface, allowing the vehicle to produce different facial expressions,” the automaker said in a news release. “This means the BMW i Vision Dee can talk to people and, at the same time, express moods such as joy, astonishment or approval visually.”
Like the i Vision Circular from 2021, the i Vision Dee is just a concept car, meant to preview potentially forthcoming designs and technologies that could make their way onto dealer lots eventually. At the same time, the design itself feels like something that could preview a future electric 3 Series or i4 of some sort.
Visually, the i Vision Dee almost looks like a cross between a Tesla Model 3 and one of BMW’s classic sport sedans, like a 2002 or an E30. The kidney grille sweeps across almost the entire front of the concept and a rear light bar does the same across the trunk. The white, almost featureless body is a stark contrast to the fussy designs of many current BMWs, while still keeping signature features like the “Hofmeister kink” of the rear windows.
While BMW won’t directly confirm that this design is intended for production, it’s fairly safe to assume it will influence future cars. BMW’s concepts have a way of turning into reality—see the i8 supercar and i3 city car from the past decade. BMW even calls this “another milestone on the road” to Neue Klasse, BMW’s upcoming EV-specific car platform. That setup is named for the “New Class” of sport sedans and coupes that defined BMW’s image in the 1960s and ‘70s.
While current BMWs tend to be built to offer a mix of internal combustion, hybrid, or EV power — the electric i4 and ICE-powered 4 Series Gran Coupe are essentially the same vehicle, for example — the next round of models is designed from the ground up to be electric for better range and better battery packaging.
BMW says the i Vision Dee also represents a significant evolution of the E Ink color-shifting technology that debuted at last year’s CES and, as a result, can transform its exterior into 32 different colors — and not just one color, either. The concept’s body is divided into 240 E Ink segments, each of which can be controlled individually, BMW says. It’s the first time E Ink is used on the entire outside of a car, and BMW has said the technology could be close to commercialization at the consumer level.
For BMW, it’s evidence that the sport sedan is still important to the company’s image and bottom line, said BMW design boss Domagoj Dukec at a press preview in Germany last year.
“We want to show our customers, if the world is changing, we will adapt, but certainly we will always be familiar,” Dukec said. “Everybody who’s working within my team, from different cultures and different generations, they love the brand and they know their history. They don’t want that to go away.”
Dukec added, “It’s also BMW. When you talk about the core product… it’s the 3 and 5 Series.”
Who needs screens when you have a windshield?
The i Vision Dee brings good news for drivers who hate the explosion of in-car touchscreens lately: there are no screens here.
The concept’s bare-bones stark gray interior is even more minimal in design than the outside, with a pared-down steering wheel, seats, and what BMW calls the “Mixed Reality Slider”: a touch panel that controls how much information the driver sees on the advanced Heads-Up Display.
There’s also bad news for drivers who hate screens: the whole windshield is now essentially a display, mixing the functions of a dashboard with an infotainment system and adding in augmented reality features.
Using the windshield to host displays is nothing new; many modern cars project vehicle speeds, navigation, and other data there (and have in various forms since the 1980s). But this concept takes that idea to a whole new level.
Images projected onto the screen include social media posts and AR displays in addition to vehicle diagnostics. The other windows are dimmable, too, if drivers and passengers want to go full VR mode. Would this create a giant distraction? Maybe, but BMW says it’s safer than taking your eyes fully off the road to look at a dashboard-mounted screen.
“Projection across the entire width of the windscreen allows information to be displayed on the largest possible surface — which only becomes recognizable as a display once it is activated,” BMW said in a statement. “[The car] visualizes how an advanced Head-Up-Display could also be utilized in the future for the display and operating concept.”
A version of this system, presumably a pared-down one, will make its debut on the Neue Klasse cars starting in 2025.
“An intelligent companion,” not just a car
But while many of the features previewed on the i Vision Dee certainly won’t be ready for primetime in 2023, they feel like a believable approach to where the increasingly digitally focused automotive industry is going.
“With the BMW i Vision Dee, we are showcasing what is possible when hardware and software merge. In this way, we are able to exploit the full potential of digitalization to transform the car into an intelligent companion,” said Oliver Zipse, BMW’s board chairman, in a statement.
That’s cold comfort to the diehards who want BMW to go back to the way things used to be — however they choose to perceive that. It also won’t do for critics of the technologies found in the i Vision Dee. After all, Amazon Alexa did little more than set billions of dollars on fire in 2022, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to pivot to the metaverse has been met with outright scorn. The question remains whether drivers even want some of the features on the i Vision Dee, especially the sweeping displays across the windshield or the talking virtual assistant.
Even as it struggles with things like getting drivers to accept subscription features in cars, BMW says yes. The future isn’t going to be high-revving inline-six engines and manual transmissions, so BMW has to find a way to convince the diehard faithful that “performance” can be defined by things like software speed, charging time, and electric range. The cars it produces in the immediate next few years probably won’t be as wildly ambitious as the i Vision Dee, but it does show that BMW is already thinking in that direction.
Amazon to axe 18,000 jobs citing economic uncertainty
Amazon chief points to company’s rapid hiring in recent years while saying layoffs mainly to hit its brick-and-mortar stores
Amazon has announced it will cut more than 18,000 jobs from its workforce – the largest set of layoffs in the US company’s history – while business software maker Salesforce is to cut 8,000 workers in the latest purge of tech jobs.
Amazon cited “the uncertain economy” and said the e-commerce giant had “hired rapidly over the last several years” in making the announcement on Wednesday.
‘AI is going to reinvent how you do everything on Windows,’ says Microsoft’s Windows boss
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Panos Panay is the man in charge of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft hardware, and he has CEO Satya Nadella’s ear. So when he says that AI is the future of Windows, we’re definitely paying attention.
“AI is going to reinvent how you do everything on Windows, quite literally,” he told an audience at AMD’s CES 2023 press conference, pausing for effect.
The context: AMD has just announced its new Ryzen 7000 mobile processors, and the company’s boasting that they’re the first x86 chips to contain a dedicated AI engine — one that, it claims, also happens to be 20 percent faster than the one in Apple’s MacBook Pros with M1 Pro chips.
(Dragging Apple was a bit of a theme during the early part of AMD’s keynote, though it’s worth noting that Apple is overdue to refresh those laptops with M2 Pro chips, and its existing MacBooks have largely unbeatable battery life. AMD CEO Lisa Su claimed AMD’s new chips can offer 30 hours of battery life, though a slide behind her clarified that they can reach 30 hours of video playback specifically.)
But back to AI: “You’ve told me: every TOP I’m going to put on that machine, I’m going to use,” Su related. “I’m going to try!” Panos laughed during the presentation.
Unfortunately, he didn’t go into much detail about how Windows might use them — for today, his one suggestion was that a PC’s webcam could add background blur, detect eye contact, and automatically frame someone on a conference call while using far less battery, all part of Windows Studio Effects. He namedropped natural language models as well.
That’s not all that compelling by itself, but it’s intriguing to think that Microsoft might have bigger plans, especially because AMD’s mobile chips won’t be the only x86 ones with onboard AI engines for long. They’ll also be included in Intel’s Meteor Lake chips, due later this year, and they’ve been a part of ARM-based chips for some time now.
impressive demo from @sbathiche and @panos_panay of the latest Windows 11 Voice Focus feature on ARM-based devices. It completely wipes out background noise. Yes Nvidia, Discord, and others can do this, but this uses 0% of your GPU and CPU pic.twitter.com/xppsxsttnc
Gran Turismo 7 is getting a free VR upgrade for PSVR2’s launch
Jim Ryan reveals Gran Turismo 7’s VR update at CES 2023. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Gran Turismo 7 will be getting a free upgrade to let you play the game on PlayStation VR2, PlayStation head Jim Ryan announced during Sony’s CES 2023 press conference on Wednesday. The update will be available when PSVR2 launches in February, and more than 30 games are “on track” for the PSVR 2’s launch, Ryan said.
Sony also revealed a big new title coming to PSVR2: Beat Saber, which is arguably one of the marquee titles for VR. It’s now “in development” for the platform, according to Ryan, and more details about the release will be shared in the “near future.” Developer Beat Games is owned by Meta, but a PSVR2 release of Beat Saber isn’t completely out of the blue; the game is already available for the original PSVR.
PSVR2 promises to be a big upgrade over the first PSVR, with features like an OLED screen, a 110-degree field of view, support for 4K HDR and framerates of up to 120Hz, and four cameras built into the device. It also has new Sense controllers that can detect finger touches and, like the DualSense for PS5, they also have haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. But if you wanted to play your PSVR games on the new model, you won’t be able to.
PSVR2 is set to launch on February 22nd for $549.99. Preorders are available now on Sony’s PlayStation Direct website, no invitation required. One of the marquee launch titles is a new VR game in the Horizon universe, titled Horizon Call of the Mountain, but you’ll also be able to play through Resident Evil Village’s new VR mode as part of a free update available on day one.
Coming soon: smart homes where the electricity isn’t so dumb
The Schneider Pulse smart electrical panel, one component of this system. | Image: Schneider Electric
I don’t know if Schneider Electric will be the one to crack it, but I like what it’s promising here at CES 2023 — a smart home where the electrical circuits themselves are smart enough to keep your house powered, save on your energy bill, manage solar, and charge electric vehicles, all through a single app.
Schneider Electric isn’t a household name, but there’s a good chance you’ve got one of its Square D circuit breakers in your home — the company says four in 10 US households already do. Today, it’s announcing an ecosystem of gadgets that won’t be hidden inside your walls, including:
an entire smart main electrical panel called the Schneider Pulse that can control its own relays and acts as the brains
a 7.6kW inverter large enough for whole-home solar and a pair of batteries, with a dedicated EV charging port
a wall-mountable, stackable 10kWh battery called the Schneider Boost that can fit right beneath the inverter
an 11.5kW level 2 EV charger
an array of smart outlets, dimmers, and light switches that the system can both control and monitor and which work with Alexa and Google Home
Image: Schneider Electric
Specs: 200A panel, 10kWh batteries, 7.6kW inverter, 11.5kW / 48A level 2 EV charging.
“What’s the big deal?” you might ask. “Can’t you buy all those pieces from any number of companies?” Yes, you can, and some systems try to balance solar, battery backup, and car charging to some degree.
But if you buy two or more of these “Schneider Home” products, the company is promising some snazzy synergy.
Want to know how much power every individual device in your home is using? Combine the main panel and outlets and you’ll be able to measure that three different ways — not only can it calculate consumption at each outlet but also every breaker, and it’s got an integrated algorithmic energy monitor (powered by Sense) that can try to estimate what each individual device is using by listening for its electronic signature.
Image: Schneider Electric
Flip off major offenders.
Power outage? If you’ve got the inverter and battery backup, the app promises to let you selectively choose which devices should keep running and which to turn off at the circuit, outlet, switch, or light fixture level. In Schneider’s example, it’ll even nudge you into choices that might make a difference, like remotely turning off an air conditioner or EV charging. Then, it’ll tell you when the power returns so you can resume.
Image: Schneider Electric
Get notified when you can resume consumption.
And with the main panel and inverter, Schneider claims, homeowners will be able to install an EV charger even if the electrical service line running to their house would normally be undersized for the task.
I can relate! I wanted to get a 200A main panel upgrade myself for upgrades like that, but my solar company informed me that my service line was too skinny, and PG&E wanted an incredible sum of money to rip up my front yard and get a thicker one trenched underneath the sidewalk. “You can upgrade just the panel itself, not the electrical service, and save lots of money,” Schneider VP Jaser Faruq tells me.
Image: Schneider Electric
A peek inside the smart electrical panel.
That said, upgrades like these will still cost a pretty penny. “Think on the order of $10,000 if you’re including all the parts of the system here,” says Faruq, adding that the installation cost will vary widely. The Pulse panel alone might cost $5,000 with labor and hardware, double that if you’ve got to pay your utility to upgrade a service line, and full-home battery backup might mean four batteries and two inverters if you want to last through a 12-hour blackout.
On the plus side, there are some federal credits: the Inflation Reduction Act gives you a 30 percent tax credit on the battery, as well as 30 percent (capped at $600) toward a smart electrical panel.
You’ll also need an electrician to install most of these pieces and / or a solar contractor if you want solar panels, as Schneider doesn’t sell that piece of the puzzle itself. Plus, the company admits most of these upgrades will require an inspection from your local municipality.
If, like me, you’ve already installed solar, you may also have to consider the sunk cost of your existing inverter, which you’d need to replace to get the full benefits of Schneider’s offering. “We’re targeting customers who are entering this world of solar and electrification first,” says Faruq. “Because over 90 percent of homes in the US don’t have solar or energy storage, that’s the big priority.”
He says people don’t need to buy all the components to get benefits, though, and that parts of the system are interoperable with third-party parts. You should be able to plug most batteries, solar, and EV chargers into the panel and / or inverter, and they’ve even got a miniature backup control switch you can pick instead of the main panel if you just want a battery and inverter. But the goal, he says, is to control it all with a single app and a minimum of boxes on your garage wall.
Schneider’s new parts are still in the process of getting their certification, but the intent is to start the first installations this summer and ramp in the second half of 2023.
Death of the narrator? Apple unveils suite of AI-voiced audiobooks
Exclusive: tech firm quietly launches new audiobook catalogue narrated by AI – but move expected to spark backlash
Apple has quietly launched a catalogue of books narrated by artificial intelligence in a move that may mark the beginning of the end for human narrators. The strategy marks an attempt to upend the lucrative and fast-growing audiobook market – but it also promises to intensify scrutiny over allegations of Apple’s anti-competitive behaviour.
The popularity of the audiobook market has exploded in recent years, with technology companies scrambling to gain a foothold. Sales last year jumped 25%, bringing in more than $1.5bn. Industry insiders believe the global market could be worth more than $35bn by 2030.
Twitter sued over $136,260 in unpaid rent after Elon Musk takeover
Landlord alleges the social media company owes back rent for its California Street branch in San Francisco
Elon Musk is trying to slash expenses at Twitter as close to zero as possible while his personal wealth shrinks – and this apparently has included falling behind on rent payments at the company’s offices.
Twitter owes $136,260 in overdue rent on its offices on the 30th floor of a building in downtown San Francisco, according to a lawsuit filed by the building’s landlord last week.
It’s a 24.1-inch 1080p G-Sync panel that’s unfortunately saddled with TN screen technology, known for its refresh rates rather than viewing angles or wide color gamut. But the monitor pulls a pretty cool trick: the stand lets you pop in and out its feet to fit in narrower spaces and lock them in place.
Image: Asus
Asus’ 540Hz monitor has adjustable locking feet.
The other thing it has over the Alienware is a price: Asus rep Cat Tompkins tells The Verge it should cost $899 USD.
Image: Asus
A rear view.
It’s also got a built-in ESS Quad DAC with “near-zero audio latency,” presumably to pipe killer audio from your PC to its 3.5mm headphone jack. Asus boasts that it actually has “above 90% DCI-P3” in terms of the colors it can display. Its twin HDMI ports are HDMI 2.0 rather than 2.1, which means you probably won’t have variable refresh rate for your game consoles, though you’ll probably be using DP 1.4 from your PC to achieve the high refresh rates anyhow. Like the Alienware and some earlier monitors, it comes with Nvidia’s Reflex Latency Analyzer.
I still think 500Hz monitors are overkill for the reasons I laid out this morning: “the response time difference between a 360Hz panel and a 500Hz one is less than one-thousandth of a second — 0.78 milliseconds, to be exact — and only in games where your graphics card or chip can actually deliver 500 frames per second,” I wrote.
Image: Asus
Another angle on the 540Hz monitor.
But if that’s exactly what you’re looking for, you’ll have at least two options this year.
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