The third-gen Echo Show 8 has a new look and some excellent changes under the hood. | Photo by Alex Cranz / The Verge And Echo Show 8 makes three! Amazon now has three smart home hubs, with the Echo Show 8 (third-gen) joining the newly announced Echo Hub and existing fourth-gen Echo smart speaker in sporting both Thread and Zigbee connectivity. These wireless radios, along with Bluetooth LE, Wi-Fi, and Sidewalk, mean the new Show 8 can be used to set up and control almost any smart home device (sorry, Z-Wave). This also rounds out Amazon’s Echo options that fully support the new smart home standard Matter (over both Thread and Wi-Fi) quite nicely, although one at a lower price point than $100 would be good. The third-gen Echo Show 8 ($149.99) also has Amazon’s latest AZ2 processor, which makes it 40 percent faster, Amazon’s Dave Limp said at the fall... Continue reading…

Just like Asus ROG Ally, the Lenovo Legion Go is another great handheld PC gaming console that is an alternative to the Steam Deck. The Legion Go's control system is a cross between an Xbox controller with its button layout, while also dettaching from the Legion Go, just like the Nintendo Switch's Joy-Con controls. While these are both great ways to play, sometimes there's just not getting around wanting to use a traditional controller.

The $180 Echo Hub is designed to be wall-mounted but can be used as a tabletop device with a separate mount. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Amazon was keeping close guard over its new Echo Hub smart controller in the demo room at today’s big hardware event. But I managed to get a few seconds of hands-on with a working tabletop unit before it was whisked away. I also put it through its paces on the wall-mounted version, and while it responded to touches promptly in some cases, it’s no iPad — or even Fire tablet. Maybe it’s asking too much to have a powerful tablet that controls your whole smart home, mounted on your wall, for under $180. The Echo Hub did promptly turn on a nearby lamp when I tapped “on.” It swiftly activated a Baby Crying Routine that started lullabies playing on an Echo Show 5. It accepted swipes and presses with good response times — faster than the... Continue reading…

Microsoft's special September 21 event in New York City is now just a day away, but an internal memo sent out to employees at the company has spilled some of the beans on what you might expect. It is shaping up to be an event that will focus heavily on the power of AI in many Microsoft products, including Surface, Microsoft 365, and Windows.

The Panasonic SoundSlayer (GNW10). | Image: Panasonic Companies keep trying to make neck speakers a thing. People must be buying them, though, because Panasonic is releasing a new one: the GNW10 SoundSlayer, a wireless neck speaker with AI voice isolation (which it confusingly calls “AI voice control”) for phone calls and in-game voice chat. The SoundSlayer is $299 and will be available in late October of this year.This is essentially an updated version of the wired SoundSlayer neck speaker that Panasonic released two years ago. The biggest change is that the new SoundSlayer employs a small transmitter that plugs into your console or PC and sends audio with a proprietary 2.4GHz wireless protocol that Panasonic says is good for under 20ms of latency. That’s less than you’d typically see... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Apple came close to creating an investing feature for the iPhone that would’ve let users buy and sell stocks directly on the device, according to a report from CNBC. The company reportedly started working on the investing feature during the meme stock hype in 2020 but ultimately pivoted away from the idea last year as markets began to falter.Sources close to the situation tell CNBC that Apple was working on the feature with Goldman Sachs, the financial institution that Apple teamed up with to launch its credit card, buy now, pay later offering, and savings account. While Apple and Goldman Sachs aimed to release the feature in 2022, Apple shelved the project, as CNBC reports it “feared user backlash if people lost money in the stock... Continue reading…

It's been a while since the OnePlus 11 launched, and even though it met a pretty great price point, it's far from the perfect Android phone. It's a flagship available at a relatively affordable price, and that's something not many smartphones can offer. However, with Google offering a great price-to-performance ratio, the mid-tier market is as competitive as ever. To succeed, the upcoming OnePlus 12 needs to improve where this year's OnePlus 11 fell short. Although OnePlus is currently focused on shipping a foldable smartphone, called the OnePlus Open, it's clear that the OnePlus 12 is on its way. With an expected debut coming sometime around the new year, here's what we know about the OnePlus 12 so far.

This is the laptop you want if you're looking for something that has a large screen and is also lightweight. The LG gram 17 was a surprise hit when it was released, with our own Senior Editor João Carrasqueira calling the laptop "bafflingly light" with "great performance."

Illustration: The Verge Donald Trump Jr.’s X account was compromised on Wednesday in one of the more high-profile security lapses during Elon Musk’s ownership of the company. The account made several unusual posts, including one that falsely claimed former President Donald Trump had “passed away” and that Trump Jr. would take his place in the ongoing 2024 presidential campaign. The bogus posts were eventually deleted later in the morning. Security at X, formerly Twitter, has always been a rocky issue — and it was a problem long before Musk took over. A massive hack in 2020 saw numerous popular accounts hijacked in an effort to push a Bitcoin scam; its perpetrators have since faced legal consequences. Earlier this year, a database posted online was claimed to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Climate change misinformation — including that which is funded by the fossil fuel industry — continues to thrive on social media. While Google, YouTube, Meta, and TikTok are all still lagging in their moderation of climate denial content, X (formerly Twitter) appears to have no clear policies on what to do with such content and is not transparent with what (if any) actions it is taking, according to an analysis published today by a coalition of environmental groups and researchers known as Climate Action Against Disinformation. Out of a possible 21 points, researchers scored platforms on how effectively they moderate factually incorrect information about the climate — using a combination of the company’s community guidelines, terms of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon executives were “okay” with people being secretly signed up for its Amazon Prime membership program, the FTC said in an amended lawsuit on Wednesday (as reported by The Wall Street Journal). The original lawsuit, filed in June, claimed that Amazon had tricked millions into unwittingly subscribing to Prime through buttons that were presented prominently during checkout. The FTC added new details to back up its claims on Wednesday, including internal messages and the names of three senior Amazon leaders who allegedly “played a key role” in the scheme.The executives include two of Amazon’s most senior leaders at the time, Neil Lindsay — the senior vice president who oversaw Prime — and Russell Grandinetti, Amazon’s senior vice... Continue reading…

Apple recently introduced the Apple Watch Series 9, its latest high-end smartwatch, featuring a new Apple S9 processor, a brighter screen, and new features like Double Tap. But if you end up getting one, you might be worried about taking it for a swim or into the shower.