Latest Technology

The Echo Dot Max went from $99.99 to $119.99 overnight, while its sibling the Echo Dot jumped to $79.99 from $49.99. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Citing "significant increases in memory and storage component costs," in a statement given to Fortune , Amazon has raised prices on Echos, Kindles, Fire TVs , and Eeros by up to 60 percent. The cheapest products in Amazon's lineup were hit hardest, with the Echo Dot smart speaker jumping from $49.99 to $79.99. The Fire TV Stick 4K Max also rose by over 40 percent to $84.99, and the base level Kindle now costs $149.99, a nearly 37 percent increase. Amazon's flagship Echo Dot Max smart speaker , which launched last year, now costs $119.99, up from $99.99. Apple increased the price of its comparable HomePod Mini this summer to $129 from $99.99, … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/HZuifyx

The OmniBook 3 isn’t a sweet treat, but it gets things done on the cheap. | Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge Laptop prices are out of whack. $500 used to get you a tolerable laptop, and $900 got you a really good one. They often had similar CPU, RAM, and storage options because that stuff was comparatively cheap; the difference was often in build quality and screen rather than power. But RAMageddon has thrown everything off. Even laptops like the $950 Surface Laptop now start with 8GB of RAM, which isn't enough. And on the lower end, where manufacturers are struggling to compete with the $700 MacBook Neo, they're cutting corners on storage, CPU, and build quality too. However, one low-cost laptop has bucked this and genuinely surprised me. HP's 16 … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/gCSnRN1

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 141, your guide to the best and Verge -iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, I'm newish here too, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage .) This week, I've been getting back into the Installer groove, trying out some ergonomic Switch 2 grips I bought on Etsy , researching bike stuff because I'm about to get a Velotric e-bike, inching my way through the fourth book in The Dark Tower series, trying to figure out what feels off about Sonic in the new Fortnite season , wondering why Mark Zuckerberg needs a castle , and swatting at a few too many flies that have snu … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/VIASvmG

Here’s Elon Musk showing off the Solar Roof plans back in 2016. | Image: Dieter Bohn / The Verge Tesla has discontinued Solar Roof, its solar panels designed to look like regular roofing tiles, Electrek reports. Sources "close to the program" told the publication that Tesla has informed its third-party installer network that Solar Roof is no longer available to order, and that only conventional solar panels will be supplied going forward. While Tesla hasn't officially announced that it's sunsetting the product, it's made several website changes that corroborate the reported discontinuation. The dedicated Solar Roof page ( tesla.com/solarroof ) that launched almost a decade ago now automatically redirects to Tesla's solar panel page inste … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/fYz9gTP

He hates weigh-in days. My cat Pablo is a voluptuous boy. His primordial pouch , originally thought to protect cats' squishy insides, hangs low and wobbles to and fro. Once, when he was five or six, a vet sternly sat my spouse and me down, gravely stating, "He's simply too young to be this fat." Pablo didn't care, but we were traumatized. Now that he's 10, the vets have repeatedly scolded us. All 20 pounds of his rotundity, they say, cannot continue. The specter of diabetes and kidney problems, and the fact that his obesity combined with a too-small pee-pee hole increases his risk of urinary crystals, mean that a diet is urgent. I hear this every year. I keep say … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/SmKHGdc

Last year, Audi announced that it gave its all-EV-by-2033 plan the boot, and instead will offer a mix of gasoline, hybrid, and electrified propulsion. There's no doubt still some uncertainty among bigger automakers - especially those under the Volkswagen Group umbrella - when it comes to such a (now prior) commitment. Even so, what it's currently offering on the EV front is rather good, and fits into the German brand's under-the-radar fast sedan tradition quite well. I recently discovered this in the 2027 Audi S6 Sportback E-tron . A cross between a sedan and a wagon in terms of its rearward shape, there's no hulking Quattro all-wheel drive … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/xuaRWg9