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Amazon had plenty of new gadgets to share at its Echo hardware event this year, along with updates to the AI-powered Alexa Plus after it became available to everyone in the US in February. But the big news this year is screens: devices with big, beautiful ones, and those that lack them entirely. There’s the Alexa Photo Frame, which Amazon devices chief Panos Panay describes as “the world’s smartest photo frame” and that doubles as a full Alexa speaker. There’s also the new Echo Time smart alarm

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. AI labs are buying data from dead startups to train their models When Keelan Miskell began winding down his crypto startup, he didn’t think its data was worth much. But he’s…

The Echo Studio with Home Camera, the new Echo Dot, and the Echo Time. | Photo: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Amazon has just taken the wraps off a bunch of new devices as part of a string of fall announcements. Today's news focuses largely on new Echo speakers, with a few new smart home gadgets sprinkled in. Here's a roundup of all of the updates Amazon revealed on Wednesday. Echo Show 16 adds a larger display and other upgrades Amazon's new Echo Show 16 has a 16-inch display in an anod

The new Echo Studio also gets a camera, and the Echo Show 16 debuts an AI-generated Alexa interface.

It’ll use compatible Ring cameras to show you animations of people and cars moving outside your home. | Photo: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Amazon's smart home map interface that shows you where all your connected devices are has been overhauled with new graphics, features, and dynamic effects. The new Alexa Home Map is now an interactive 3D view of not just everything that's inside your property, but outside of it too - using compatible Ring cameras to provide a 360-degree view that an

Amazon just announced its newest smart alarm clock - the Echo Time. The baseball-sized smart speaker with a screen, the Time looks like an Echo Dot with Clock and an Echo Spot had a much bigger baby. It features a 3.2-inch touchscreen that prominently displays your choice of a huge selection of clockfaces and includes a sleep-sensing feature that promises to rouse you at just the right time in your sleep cycle to help you feel more rested. It costs $199.99 and is available to order now. I spent

The Echo Show 16 is a ground-up rebuild of Amazon’s storied smart display line. | Photo: Owen Grove / The Verge Amazon's latest Echo Show smart display is big, gorgeous, and eye-wateringly expensive. Announced today, the Echo Show 16 costs $499.99 (wall mount included) and is available to preorder now. There's a Nanomatte display option for $569.99, plus a $100 preorder discount ahead of its release later this year. After spending time with the device at a small media event in New York City th

Amazon is giving its premium smart speaker a camera. The new Echo Studio with Home Camera, announced today as part of Amazon's big blast of announcements, has a built-in camera for monitoring a room while you're away, showing things to Alexa, and, soon, to use with video calls on Fire TV devices. It's an iteration on the revised Echo Studio announced last year, which had a brand-new design. The Echo Studio with Home Camera also offers some audio updates. Amazon says a new feature called "Advance

Kroger's $1.65 billion proposed acquisition of Giant Eagle might not only consolidate the grocery market, but also a vast surveillance network that includes Flock cameras, a new report warns. Beyond standard concerns that a merger could decrease competition and increase prices, the American Economic Liberties Project (AELP), which advocates for competition policy reforms, says that the consolidation could also expand customer surveillance by a single company. It comes at a time where Americans a

Amazon's screen-equipped smart speakers have long been able to display your family's photos, but its new Alexa Photo Frame is purpose-built for that task. It's designed to compete with other digital picture frames from companies like Aura, and Amazon's incorporates a smart speaker with access to Alexa Plus' capabilities through voice commands. However, unlike the Echo Show and Amazon's other smart home hubs, the Alexa Photo Frame only ever displays your photos, and you'll never be served an ad.

Ask Texas NAACP president Gary Bledsoe what it's been like to see data center developers descend upon Austin and its surrounding suburbs and he can rattle off project after project facing opposition from locals. There's the fight in Taylor over plans to build a data center at a site that's supposed to be a park. Temple, around 40 miles away, is another sore spot, Bledsoe says. The mayor and City Council members there face recall attempts over data center developments. And some 30 miles outside o

As Meta was feeling public pressure over teen mental health, and facing an impending onslaught of kids safety trials, the company considered a campaign to discredit a key critic: social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Newly filed court documents show that in March 2023, Meta discussed a "Whisper strategy" to "turn academics against Haidt," a thought leader who blamed social media for rising adolescent depression and anxiety. Haidt hadn't yet published his bestselling book, The Anxious Generation, b

Meta has launched a "tamagotchi-style" pet game called Waddle World, with virtual creatures that chat with users and create doodles to illustrate conversations. According to its Apple and Play Store listings, the "16-bit pet care game" is not really a game, but "a daily journal disguised as a pet." Users should talk, not type, with their pets, the description says, as well as play "cozy games" like stacking groceries or word games. The Play store description says: A little friend that listens. A

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If Apple headphones have been sitting on your wish list, now might be the time to buy ahead of the holiday rush.

Workers tell WIRED that NOA—or “No Ordinary Assistant”—was unhelpful. Bestselling authors also say AI is ruining their relationships with Big Five publishers.

Online spaces are captured by oligarchs and saturated with slop—and they’re exacerbating humanity’s worst impulses. It’s time to start over.