Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon just held its fall hardware launch event, where it revealed a ton of new tech, including a new Kindle Scribe, an updated Fire TV cube, and a second-generation Echo Auto device. Here’s a roundup of some of the most exciting announcements that came out of Amazon’s event. … Read more
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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Since the start of the pandemic, the Food and Drug Administration has signed off on 430 COVID-19 tests through its emergency use authorization powers — rules that let the agency push tests and drugs out the door more quickly during an emergency. Now, over two years later, the … Read more
Illustration: The Verge If you open up Google Maps right now, I’m guessing you’ll probably search for where you want to go using a traditional 2D map. But Google has some ideas to help you discover the world around you in a far more immersive way, and it showed off some of what it’s working … Read more
Google is gearing up to launch several new updates for Maps in the coming months, the company announced today at its Search On event. Google teased the upcoming launches of new Maps features called Immersive view, Neighborhood vibe and Search with Live View. The company says all of the features announced today are part of … Read more
Google is introducing a new Maps feature called “Neighborhood vibe,” the company announced today at its Search On event. The feature is designed to give users an instant understanding of a specific neighborhood right in the Maps app. Neighborhood Vibe surfaces photos and information from the Google Maps community to give you an idea of … Read more
Buoys equipped with onboard computers could use AI to help save humpback whales in the US from ship collisions. | Photo by Tim Graham / Getty Images AI software monitoring sounds from within bright yellow buoys could reduce whale deaths by identifying whale species and pod locations. Scientists then verify the data and relay that … Read more
A new Google feature that will allow users to search using both images and text combined in to find local retailers who offer the apparel, home goods or the food you’re looking for will soon roll out to users in the U.S., Google announced today at its “Search On” event. The company had first previewed … Read more
Google is giving its translation service an upgrade with a new machine learning-powered addition that will allow users to more easily translate text that appears in the real world, like on storefronts, menus, documents, business cards and other items. Instead of covering up the original text with the translation — the new feature will instead … Read more
Google today announced it’s revamping the traditional Google Search experience to allow users to more naturally explore information. To accomplish this, the company is introducing a number of new features, including tools to drill down into topics and other changes that will make using search a more visual experience, highlighting maps snippets, imagery and even … Read more
The Verge Google’s impressive multisearch tool, which lets you search using both an image and some text, will be expanding to more than 70 global languages in the next few months, the company announced at its Search On event on Wednesday. Multisearch uses Google Lens to make it easier to search for things that might … Read more
Amazon showed its Eero Wi-Fi lineup some love this morning during a hardware event, announcing the Eero PoE 6, a Wi-Fi 6 Power over Ethernet (PoE) access point that can provide up to 2,000 square feet of coverage and support up to 100 devices. A complementary new product, the Eero PoE Gateway, delivers up to … Read more
Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Welcome to the Wednesday edition of Hot Pod. You can blame Rosh Hashanah for my tardiness. We have a lot to get into today, but first, some shameless self-promotion! I made an episode of The Vergecast about how the rise of streaming has changed music creation and what … Read more
You already know whether you’re an Amazon Echo type person. If so you’re probably looking at one right now, thinking “should I upgrade that thing or is it pointless?” Probably the latter — unless you also have Amazon’s Eero mesh wi-fi product, in which case: it’s probably still pointless, unless it’s pretty old. In which … Read more
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In addition to a new lineup of Alexa-enabled devices, Amazon at its fall event today also introduced a series of Alexa updates aimed at users of its Echo Show devices with a screen. The features include those focused on entertainment — like bringing Fire TV to Echo Show 15 — as well as others for … Read more
Amazon today announced a number of new smart features designed to allow Alexa device owners to better control their smart home — some of which don’t even require the Alexa device owner to interact with the virtual assistant by voice. These features expand on tools Amazon has rolled out to make Alexa more proactive and … Read more
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Venture is back, baby! But not really at the later stages and, oh, also definitely not at the same valuations or cadence as 2021. After more than six months of declining deal counts and venture activity, venture deal pace is starting to pick up again. Multiple investors and lawyers told TechCrunch this week that they’ve … Read more
Amazon today introduced two new Fire TV devices designed to cater to customers seeking a more premium experience. At its fall hardware event this afternoon, the company showed off the latest version of its high-end media player, the Fire TV Cube, as well as new higher-end TVs with the Fire TV Omni QLED series models. … Read more
Weighing in at $100, the new Amazon Blink Floodlight camera brings more brightness and smarts to its camera line. The company also launched a brand new Blink Mini Pan Tilt mount, giving security-conscious customers the ability to look around a bit more than before. The two new additions to the Blink family were launched at … Read more
Amazon is launching two new designs for its Echo Dot Kids devices, the company announced at its virtual event today. The Echo Dot Kids devices now come in new Owl and Dragon designs. The two new designs join Amazon’s current Echo Dot Kids devices: the Tiger and the Panda. The new designs will be available … Read more
Amazon released Wednesday the second-generation version of Echo Auto, a smaller and slicker device aimed to broaden the e-commerce giant’s reach by bringing its Alexa voice assistant into more vehicles. Echo Auto, which first came to market in 2018, connects to a vehicle’s infotainment system to bring the Alexa assistant into the vehicle. A driver … Read more
Wires in the wall — what a concept. | Image: Eero When it comes to networking, Wi-Fi is great for convenience, but it can’t hold a candle to wires when it comes to performance and plain old reliability. Amazon seems to have taken this idea to heart because it’s introducing an ethernet jack-laden gateway, which … Read more
Echo speakers will join the newest Echo Dot speakers as Eero Wi-Fi range extenders for an Eero. If you’ve been eyeing your Echo smart speaker for a while now and wondering if it could do something more than just play music or set a timer for your toast, I have good news. Amazon is turning … Read more
No wires on the battery version of the Cam Pro. | Image: Ring Ring’s got a new top-of-the-line “Pro” security camera that packs all of the company’s advanced features into a more versatile design, complete with wire-free options for the first time. The Spotlight Cam Pro adds radar-powered 3D motion detection, color pre-roll, and Bird’s … Read more
There’s been a standing question surrounding how seriously we should ultimately take Astro. The product was launched exactly one year ago, in limited quantities as a Day One offering for $1,500 a pop. My interaction with the robot was (at the time) limited to a few pre-launch demos. I came away from the experience thinking … Read more
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