Technology news

Should we invite Amazon’s internet-connected cameras and voice assistants into our homes? That’s been a contentious topic for years — but today, Amazon effectively said “screw it” and announced an entire automated flying indoor robot security system.
Yes, that’s right: Amazon’s Ring division now has a camera that can theoretically go anywhere in your home, not just the direction you initially point it. Or, in Amazon’s words: An Innovative New Appro

Amazon revealed its new cloud gaming service, officially called Luna, at its annual Alexa hardware event today. That makes it an immediate competitor to Google’s Stadia, Microsoft’s xCloud, Sony’s PlayStation Now, and a number of other services from major game publishers all eager to try the code on how to stream video games over the internet.But in a revealing interview with Protocol published after the event, Amazon’s Marc Whitten, the company’s vice president of

Amazon unveiled plenty of new hardware at its fall event on Thursday, including several new Echo speakers and a flying Ring drone. Echo ($99.99), Echo Dot ($49.99), and Echo Dot with Clock ($59.99)
Look into my crystal ball... maybe Alexa will tell you your future.
Image:courtesy of amazon
Amazon’s signature smart speaker now comes in a sleek spherical shape with the Echo, Echo Dot, and Echo Dot with Clock. With brand-new colors, Amazon’s first-generation AZ1 Neural Edge process

Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip usually costs $1,380 if you buy it new, but Back Market is selling refurbished units for $799. If you’ve wanted to own one of these but couldn’t justify spending the equivalent of two Xbox Series X consoles and a PS5 digital edition on a phone, now’s your chance to jump in.
This version of the Z Flip is compatible with GSM carriers, including AT&T and T-Mobile. This isn’t the Z Flip 5G that was announced more recently; it’s the one

Photo by Jon Porter / The Verge One of the nice new features of iOS 14 was the ability to set your own default mail and browser apps. However, users who tried this out were finding that, after they restarted their device, the default would reset to Mail or Safari. Today, Apple has taken care of that with its first updates for the iPhone and iPad, bringing them up to 14.0.1. The Apple Watch will also update to 7.0.1.
Now, when you set your preferred browser defaults to Google Chrome, Firefox, or

Image: Ring Ring’s flying drone camera, the Always Home Cam, was easily the most surprising hardware announcement at today’s Amazon event. It won’t actually be available until next year, but the company has already put together a short ad to demonstrate how the camera can give you a flying, go-anywhere perspective on whatever’s happening in your home.In the video, we see Ring’s security system tripped when a burglar breaks in, and the homeowner immediately dispatch

Let’s be honest: trying to preorder a PS5 has been anything but easy. That said, if you want to try to secure Sony’s next-gen console ahead of its November 12th launch, you’ll have another shot at nabbing one at GameStop tomorrow. Both models of the PS5 will be in stock on GameStop’s website, though the retailer has yet to mention what time it will open preorders online.If you’d rather try your luck in person, you can always go to a GameStop near you. And if you dec

Following a teaser from the Xbox Game Pass team yesterday, Microsoft has announced that Doom Eternal is heading to the company’s gaming subscription service. The 2020 sequel to the fantastic 2016 reboot will arrive on Xbox Game Pass for consoles on October 1st and will launch on Game Pass for PC later this year.It’s the first game to arrive on Xbox Game Pass from ZeniMax Media, which Microsoft announced it was acquiring earlier this week. ZeniMax is the parent company for several hig

Valve Left 4 Dead 2, Valve’s iconic zombie shooter, turns 11 next month. Today, the game gets a final, massive update — The Last Stand, created by the Left 4 Dead community update team and endorsed by Valve itself. It’s also the first new content added to the game since 2012, according to Polygon. (That was the community-made DLC Cold Stream.)The update adds tons of new content to the game: new weapons, new maps, new enemy types, unused dialogue, and even a new campaign. The u

Tesla owners already have Sentry Mode for car security. But for extra protection, they can buy a $200 device from Amazon's Ring. 
Announced Thursday at an online Amazon event, Ring Car Connect sends car owners alerts about activity near their vehicle. It can also share footage from outside the vehicle, and let car owners know if their doors are locked. 
Ring Car Connect ($199) works with the Tesla Model 3, X, S, and Y, and requires plugging a small device into the car. Other car makers

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s VC-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
This week Natasha Mascarenhas, Danny Crichton and your humble servant gathered to chat through a host of rounds and venture capital news for your enjoyment. As a programming note, I am off next week effectively, so look for Natasha to lead on Equity Monday and then both her and Danny to rock the Thursday show. I will miss everyone.
But

Photo by Ollie Millington/Getty Images Facebook suspended the accounts of more than 200 people on September 19th who were connected to an event protesting the construction of the contested Coastal GasLink pipeline. The suspension shows how vulnerable activists are to the actions of social media platforms in the midst of a pandemic, when protesting in person comes with more risk than usual.
Indigenous activists have opposed the pipeline’s construction, which would cut through the Wet&rsquo

Amazon announced a load of new devices today at its hardware event, as expected. The new Echo Show 10 smart display, shown above, that can follow your movements around the room and Ring’s new Always Home Cam drone are just a sampling. And now, we found out when you can buy them and how much they’ll cost. We’ll be reviewing most, if not all, of these products before they make their way onto store shelves, but if you want to place an order ahead of time, here are the links.
If Am

Amazon's nightmare surveillance network is going mobile. 
Not merely content to film both the outside and inside of your home from fixed points, the company announced Thursday a Ring drone that will fly around the interior of your home, shooting and livestreaming video in the process. Say hello to the Always Home Cam, a product that's very existence poses the question: What the absolute fuck is Amazon thinking?
According to Amazon, its latest connected monstrosity will cost $249. And don't

Image: Apple Apple announced a new Solo Loop band with no clasps or buckles last week, but some customers found that if the watch band they ordered didn’t fit, Apple would ask them to return the entire Apple Watch. At the time, that felt like a confusing request — Apple Watch bands are designed to be interchangeable, so, in theory, it should be easy to return one watch band for another without too much hassle.
But Apple confirms to The Verge that it has changed that policy, and you&

Move over Google Stadia because Amazon is here with a cloud gaming service of its own.
Not content with infecting every other part of our lives, Jeff Bezos has decided to move into video games. Meet Luna, Amazon's new gaming platform that, like Stadia, eschews expensive hardware in favor of streaming games in 1080p directly to smart devices that you probably already own. Amazon didn't give a specific launch date, but Luna will work on Fire TV, Mac, PC, iPhone, iPad, and Android at some point dow

Amazon just wrapped up its fall hardware event, and it was packed with a number of big announcements. There were a number of new Echo devices, such as a spherical redesign of the tried-and-true Echo. Amazon also showed off improvements for Alexa, including new security features. We saw a bunch of new Ring devices — one of which was a drone that can autonomously fly around your home. And Amazon finally took the wraps off its long-rumored cloud gaming service, Luna.If you want the play-by-pl

The watchful eye of Amazon just got smarter.
At its hardware release event Thursday, Amazon debuted its latest smart assistant with a screen, the Echo Show 10. 
The Alexa device's latest nifty trick? If you move around a room while you're on a video call, the camera will follow you. 
This feature actually is pretty convenient if you're trying to multi-task while on a video call, or if you're doing some sort of presentation that requires you to move around. The camera supposedly "pans a

Image: Amazon Amazon has announced its latest video streaming devices for the TV: today the company introduced an upgraded, more powerful Fire TV Stick for the same $39.99 price. But Amazon is getting even more aggressive on price with the launch of the new Fire TV Stick Lite at just $29.99, which it claims is the “most powerful” streaming device for under $30. Both are capable of HD-quality streaming; the regular Stick can output expanded HDR color, but the Lite version cannot.Addi

Fans of Amazon’s Echo Show smart speakers will be glad to know that the company is finally adding Netflix capabilities to the device. Although Echo Show users were previous able to watch networks such as Hulu and Prime Video, the absence of the popular Netflix service could be frustrating for movie enthusiasts. Now, with the new Echo Show 10, that particular problem has been solved.
According to Amazon, you will be able to use your voice to search for and start Netflix shows or movies on t

At Amazon's virtual hardware event on Thursday, the company announced an all-new Echo, Echo Dot, and Echo Dot with clock.
All three devices share a new spherical design that's a lot more compact. The fabric finish comes in three different colors: Charcoal, Glacier White, and Twilight Blue.
The new Echo features Amazon's AZ1 Neural Edge processor. With hundreds of milliseconds shaved off from the Echo's response time, the company claims it can process commands a lot faster than its predecessors.

At its 2020 hardware event today, Amazon announced a cloud gaming platform called Luna. The news isn’t too surprising: the service has been rumored since last year, previously codenamed “Tempo,” while an Amazon-made game controller leaked out just ahead of today’s event.
It’s not clear when Luna will launch widely, but it will initially be available on PC, Mac, Fire TV, and iPhone and iPad (via web apps), with an Android version planned for after launch. Amazon says

Amazon Amazon has unveiled a new Alexa-powered security service called Alexa Guard. The announcement came during Amazon’s annual devices event on Thursday afternoon. The service will cost $4.99 per month, or $49 per year.Guard Plus is an upgrade to Alexa Guard, a free service that enables Alexa to listen for signs of danger while you’re out of the house and mimic your daily smart-light usage.When you set Guard Plus to Away Mode, Alexa will listen for unusual activity, and push an al

Amazon Amazon unveiled the AZ1 Neural Edge processor, a silicon module that will speed up Alexa’s ability to answer your queries and commands by hundreds of milliseconds per response. The company built this module alongside MediaTek, and it will allow for on-device neural speech recognition for new products, and it’s built into the new Echo and Echo Show 10 it announced today. These products, Amazon says, have “the on-device memory needed to support this level of processing.&r

Ring latest home security camera is taking flight, literally. The new Always Home Cam is an autonomous drone that can fly around inside your home to give you a perspective of any room you want when you’re not home. Once it’s done flying, the Always Home Cam returns to its dock to charge its battery. It is expected to cost $249.99 when it starts shipping next year.
Jamie Siminoff, Ring’s founder and “chief inventor”, says the idea behind the Always Home Cam is to pro

Ring Car Cam | Image: Ring Ring has announced its first foray into products meant for use outside of the home with a new line of security cameras designed for cars. The new Car Cam, Car Alarm, and Car Connect systems integrate into the same Ring app that supports the company’s home security alarm, video doorbells, and security cameras, and they provide owners with alerts for attempted break-ins. The new products are slated for availability starting next year.
Ring founder Jamie Siminoff s

Amazon Amazon has debuted the $129.99 Eero 6 and the $229.99 Eero Pro 6 mesh Wi-Fi routers that support Wi-Fi 6 and Zigbee. Following leaks from earlier in September, the Eero Pro 6 improves on its predecessor with support for Wi-Fi 6, which delivers faster speeds and support for more devices connected simultaneously. Similarly, it’s a tri-band router that offers a single band for tech that connects via 2.4GHz and two bands for 5GHz to allow more devices to connect at the fastest speeds.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge During Amazon’s event today, the company announced a range of improvements that are coming to Alexa. The company says the voice assistant will be better at responding to multiple people, and that in other cases it will be smarter about asking and remembering the answers to clarifying questions. Alexa is also being updated to change its tone in response to a conversation.
These new capabilities were demonstrated across a series of demos. The first sh

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge During Amazon’s event today, the company announced a range of improvements that are coming to Alexa. The company says the voice assistant will be better at responding to multiple people, and that in other cases it will be smarter about asking and remembering the answers to clarifying questions. Alexa is also being updated to change its tone in response to a conversation.
Amazon typically announces a number of upgrades for Alexa at its major hardware

Ring Video Doorbell 3 | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Ring has announced that it will soon offer the option to enable end-to-end encryption for the video feeds from its smart doorbells and connected home security cameras. This new higher level of security will be an optional feature and builds upon Ring’s existing encryption features. The company says it will be available for free to all Ring customers and plans to offer the feature by the end of this year.
With end-to-end encryption e

Image: Amazon Amazon has revealed is newest iteration on the Echo Dot, once a puck-shaped companion to the larger Echo smart speaker line and now a spherical smart speaker. The announcement was made during Amazon’s annual Alexa-themed hardware event live-streamed on Thursday afternoon. The new look matches that of the new fourth-generation standard Echo, also announced today.This is technically also the fourth-generation Dot and not the fifth, as last year’s minor iteration added on

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Senate Commerce Committee has asked the CEOs of Google, Facebook, and Twitter to appear for testimony on October 1, according to a new report from Politico. It’s an unusually tight timeline for such a high-profile panel, but members have indicated they may issue subpoenas if CEOs do not agree to appear by the end of the day on Thursday.It’s still possible that other committee members will object to the subpoenas, or that CEOs will find som

Amazon has announced the fourth-generation version of its main Echo smart speaker, bringing a new spherical design and better sound performance. But the biggest change is a new, on-device speech recognition module that will locally process your audio on the Echo itself, making your requests faster than ever before.One of the biggest additions to the new Echo is what Amazon’s calling the AZ1 Neural Edge silicon module, which will process the audio of your voice requests using local machine

SAVE $120: Get Beats Studio 3 wireless noise-canceling headphones on sale at Best Buy for $229.99 through Sept. 24.Everyone needs some time to shut the world off and relax with their favorite music or podcasts. And noise-canceling headphones are the best tools for the job to enjoy the latest episode of "Office Ladies" in peace and quiet. And for a premium noise-canceling experience, it's best to stick with top headphone brands such as Beats, especially when they're on sale.
SEE ALSO: 6 of the be

Image: JerryRigEverything LG’s Wing — with its rotating dual-display system — is one of 2020’s most interesting-looking smartphones. And thanks to YouTuber JerryRigEverything’s teardown of the device, we now know just how LG managed to make that swiveling screen a reality.It’s actually pretty wild: there’s a hole cut through the printed circle board (PCB) and the main frame of the phone, which has a flexible ribbon cable threaded through it to allow the