Lucid Motors founder and CEO Peter Rawlinson will step down, as the luxury EV company sets its sights on doubling production over the next year.

Rawlinson won’t be leaving the company. Instead, he’ll be assuming the role of “Strategic Technical Advisor to the Chairman of the Board,” the company said. Chief operating officer Marc Winterhoff will serve as interim CEO while the board initiates a search for a new chief executive.

“Now that we have successfully launched the Lucid Gravity, I have decided it is finally the right time for me to step aside from my roles at Lucid,” Rawlinson said in a statement. “I am incredibly proud of the accomplishments the Lucid team have achieved together through my tenure of these past twelve years. We grew from a tiny company with a big ambition, to a widely recognized technological world leader in sustainable mobility. It has been my honor to have led and grown this remarkable, truly world-class organization, because Lucid has always been first and foremost about a team effort.”

The leadership shuffle comes as Lucid eyes major growth for the next year. The company says it expects to sell 20,000 vehicles in 2025, nearly double the 10,241 EVs it delivered in 2024. The updated guidance was announced as part of the company’s fourth quarter earnings. Lucid reported a net loss attributable to common stockholders of $636.9 million for the three month period ending December 31st.

Lucid said it earned $234.4 million in revenue for the fourth quarter, on top of $807.8 million for the entire year. The company lost $3.06 billion attributable to common stockholders in 2024, and ended the year with $6.13 billion in total liquidity.

Doubling production will be a tough feat for Lucid, with most analysts predicting that EV share of the retail market to remain flat this year. Its especially tough for a luxury EV company like Lucid, with most of the growth taking place in the mass-market segment. But Lucid has high hopes for its Gravity SUV, which just started its first customer deliveries late last year. The company says it plans on gradually ramping up production during the year.

Lucid said the SUV would get up to 440 miles of range, offer 800 horsepower, and accelerate 0–60 mph in under 3.5 seconds. The Gravity will also be the first vehicle from Lucid to come with a native NACS charging port that’s compatible with Tesla’s Supercharger network.

Lucid is backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which invested $2.5 billion in the company in 2024. The money has helped the cash-losing EV maker from heading down a similar path as some of its less financially stable peers.

Amazon is set to announce new Alexa features beginning at 10AM ET this morning — and we hope a few devices accompany them. There isn’t a way to watch the event remotely, but our team is here in person to bring you all of the updates as they happen.

We’re expecting Amazon to announce its new AI-powered Alexa, which, according to earlier reports, could cost as much as $5 to $10 per month on top of a Prime membership. Reuters said in June that Amazon has considered the subscription pricing for a complete Alexa overhaul that could allow people to order dinner from services like Uber Eats or help write an email.

The Washington Post said earlier this month that Amazon won’t release the new version of Alexa for at least a month after this event because the company has reportedly encountered issues with inaccurate answers to test questions.

It seems like it would be a good time for Amazon to announce new products that use the latest version of Alexa, too, so we’re hoping to see new Echos or updates to Amazon’s glasses, Fire TV platform, and other devices and services. But who knows? Follow along below for the updates.

Ncuti Gatwa’s version of the Doctor will be back pretty soon. Disney Plus and the BBC announced that the next season of Doctor Who will start streaming on April 12th, with new episodes dropping weekly. The season will span eight episodes total. Perhaps more interesting than the date, though, is a pair of new characters that will be joining the cast.

First up is Belinda Chandra (played by Andor’s Varada Sethu), who will be a new companion for the Doctor. (That said, the official announcement does that that Millie Gibson will be returning as Ruby Sunday.) According to the plot synopsis, the new season follows the Doctor on “an epic quest to get her back to Earth. But a mysterious force is stopping their return and the time-traveling TARDIS team must face great dangers, bigger enemies, and wider terrors than ever before.”

Those wider terrors, it seems, include a cartoon character ripped out of an evil version of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. Alan Cumming will play Mr Ring-a-Ding, who is described as:

a happy, funny, singalong cartoon, who lives in Sunny Town with his friend Sunshine Sally. However, in 1952, after years of repeats in cinemas across the land, Mr Ring-a-Ding suddenly looks beyond the screen and sees the real world outside — and the consequences are terrifying.

Here are the two new additions:

This will be Gatwa’s second season in the role, after taking over for Jodie Whittaker. A spinoff series for the show, called The War Between The Land And The Sea, is also in the works.

The new season of Doctor Who will be coming at a particularly busy time for streaming TV, with the next season of Andor hitting Disney Plus on April 22nd, and The Last of Us returning for season 2 on HBO on April 13th.

The Verge is live blogging Amazon’s big Alexa event in New York City. It kicks off at 10AM ET on February 26th, and we’re expecting the company to announce a new subscription-based version of Alexa that’s beefed up with a bunch of AI features.

It seems like a good time for the company to announce new products with Alexa, too. That means we could see new Echos, Fire TV products, or other things like updated smart glasses. Sometimes Amazon announces lots of products in quick succession, while other years are more muted.

We’ll keep this page updated with all the breakout news on Alexa and anything else the company unveils.

• Amazon Alexa event live blog: all the news from the keynote
• We’re now inside Amazon’s event and waiting.
• We’re on the ground at Amazon’s event.
• What to expect from Amazon’s big Alexa event this week
• Amazon’s revamped Alexa might launch over a month after its announcement event
• There’s a hidden message in Amazon’s event invites
• Amazon announces February product event

Framework’s mission is to “fix consumer electronics, one category at a time” by making them modular, repairable, and upgradable. It’s the only laptop maker to ever truly succeed at that “upgradable” part. But desktop PCs are already modular, so why is Framework making one?

At first, I thought it saw a unique opportunity to make a cute yet badass tiny gaming PC with AMD’s unusual Strix Halo processor and decided to shoot its shot. As you’ll read below, I’m excited by the result. But I also have another idea I’ll share with you afterward.

Let’s start with the gadget part: yes, the tiny 4.5-liter gaming desktop that Framework announced yesterday is just as cool in person as it was in Framework’s photos, and yes, it can game.

At first, I wasn’t sure we’d be able to meaningfully try that last part. Almost all the Framework Desktops at the company’s live event in San Francisco yesterday were either running games that don’t offer a great sense of performance (Counter-Strike and Street Fighter) or were unplugged so we could take photos from every angle. But partway through the event, someone had fired up Cyberpunk 2077, and I saw my chance.

The first b …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Google is making it easier to remove and update Search results that contain your personal information. The company’s “Results about you” tool for detecting personal information like addresses and phone numbers that appear in Search has been updated to make it “easier than ever” for users to sign up and for removals to be requested directly on the Search page.

The Results about you tool can help people proactively monitor what sensitive information is appearing in Search results for anyone to find. You register by giving Google the name, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses that you want it to scan for. (Google says your contact data “is not shared or used to personalize your experience across other Google products.”) You’ll then be notified when your data is detected so you can request removal.

The tool was previously hidden away unless you were using the Google app — on mobile web and desktop it was buried deep within the History settings under Google user accounts. It’s also only currently available to users in the US, UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, France, Sweden, Thailand, India, and Indonesia, but will be expanded to more countries in the future.

Clicking on the three-dot menu next to results in Google Search will now display a “remove this result” option that users can click on to more quickly request removal, and understand what kind of information is eligible for deletion. Three request options will appear once opened: personal information, which includes the doxxing content outlined on Google’s help page; legal removals to flag illegal content like copyright infringement and child abuse; and requests to refresh outdated Search results.

The latter is a new feature for situations where users have had their information updated, corrected, or removed from a website but Search results haven’t reflected those changes. Upon selection, Google will be prompted to recrawl the website linking to the Search result and update its information.

YouTube isn’t a podcast app, but that hasn’t stopped it from becoming the number one place people who want to consume online radio shows now turn to. According to the company, a staggering 1 billion people are tuning into podcasts every month on YouTube. That’s not just more than either Apple or Spotify can claim — it utterly lays them to waste. 

In 2023, Spotify reported it had 100 million regular podcast listeners, and touted that half a billion people had listened to a podcast on its platform since 2019 when it started its push into the world of online radio shows. Apple tends to come out behind Spotify in third-party measurements. If a full eighth of the world’s population uses YouTube for podcasts, it seems like that’s probably where the action is. 

Reaching that big chunk of audience takes extra work for podcasters, though. Listeners can’t turn just off their phone’s screen to listen unless they’re paying for YouTube Premium, and people may not want to stare at a static image for an hour straight. That means doing video to really make it count.

Making video for YouTube is far more expensive than it used to be. In a newsletter earlier this month, cooking creator Carla Lalli Music, formerly of Bon Apetit, said it cost her $3,500 to shoot a single video for the platform. Those were more complicated than a podcast video, but it still speaks to the platform’s demand for quality in order to get off the ground. YouTube says that more than 400 million hours of podcasts were watched on TVs alone last year. Video clearly matters; creators can’t just turn on their webcams and get results.

Reaching YouTube’s audience also means playing by YouTube’s rules. The platform doesn’t work with RSS feeds in the same way that most other podcast platforms do — every podcast has to become a native YouTube video. That requires them to play by YouTube’s ad rules, too, and use YouTube’s ad systems. Podcasters can’t serve ads the same way they do everywhere else, and they can’t get the same metrics they’d normally use to sell advertisers on their reach and success.

Still, that tradeoff has clearly been worth it to a great many creators, and YouTube’s stats today show why. It may not be a traditional podcast platform, but it’s a big one that podcasters can’t ignore.

More Android phones could soon provide longer lifetime support updates thanks to a new agreement between Qualcomm and Google. Qualcomm announced on Monday that “up to eight consecutive years of software and security updates” will be available to Android phones running on future Snapdragon 8 and Snapdragon 7-series chips.

As Android specialist Mishall Rahman points out, the “eight consecutive years” is a little misleading here because Qualcomm includes the year on which a device is released. That means the device can be supported for eight years, but receive seven years of Android version upgrades — bringing more Android phones in line with the seven years of support provided on Google’s Pixel 8 and Pixel 9 lineup.

Qualcomm mentioned its support expansion plans in October, which started with devices running on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Mobile Platform. That includes the Samsung Galaxy S25 series, Xiaomi 15 Series, OnePlus 13, and Asus ROG Phone 9. 

Today’s announcement extends that service to additional chipsets, but it’s important to note that eligible phones aren’t guaranteed to receive expanded support updates. This update makes it easier and more affordable for phone manufacturers to provide users with longer support, but Qualcomm says that it’s ultimately up to device makers to decide whether they offer it on specific phone models.

“Support for platform software included in this program will be made available to OEMs for eight consecutive years, including both Android OS and kernel upgrades, without requiring significant changes or upgrades to the platform and OEM code on the device,” Qualcomm said.

Phones running older Snapdragon chips won’t be eligible for future support upgrades according to Qualcomm. The biggest caveat to all this beyond hoping device makers actually implement the expanded support update is that very few phones are likely to keep running for the full eight years. But if you’re committed to reducing e-waste and continually repairing your Android phone, at least the option will be there.

Every day for the last few weeks, I’ve received a notification on my phone at 7:30 in the morning. The notification comes from ChatGPT, and it always contains the same thing: instructions for a 20-minute full-body workout and a 10-minute meditation. The instructions are simple, and I’ve actually come to appreciate the daily prodding. I do wish it would stop recommending the exact same thing every damn day, though. The mountain climbers and positive intentions are getting a little old.

OpenAI has added a number of new features to ChatGPT in the last few weeks, a couple of which attempt to turn the chatbot into a straightforward productivity app. There’s Tasks, which all paid users can access and allows you to set reminders and make to-do lists in ChatGPT; and there’s Operator, a so-called “agentic” model for Pro subscribers that attempts to actually accomplish tasks on your behalf. As an incorrigible tester of to-do list apps, I decided to throw my life into ChatGPT and see if it could help me get more done.

After using it for a while, I’m sold on the idea of AI-capable task apps. The best way to use AI is simply as a way to get you started — it’s a brainstorming partne …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Volvo is continuing to drop hints about its upcoming high-tech electric sedan, the ES90, ahead of the EV’s official reveal next month. Today, the Swedish automaker provided new details about the ES90’s range and battery efficiency, calling it “a car that goes further and charges faster than any electric Volvo before.”

That’s mostly thanks to the ES90’s new-for-Volvo 800-volt architecture, putting it on par with other fast-charging EVs like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6. The new architecture is an upgrade from previous Volvo EVs, like the $80,000 EX90 SUV, which features a 400-volt system.

Volvo claims that the ES90 will be able to add 300km (186 miles) of range in just 10 minutes when plugged into a 350kW fast-charging station (depending on the outdoor temperature). Moreover, it will offer a driving range of up to 700km (435 miles) under the more generous WLTP testing cycle.

Automakers are increasingly trending toward higher voltage systems in the hopes of luring in more customers who are turned off by slow charging speeds and the prospect of being stuck at a public charging station for 40 minutes or more. Stellantis, parent company of Jeep and Ram, recently announced a new 800-volt flexible architecture for some of its upcoming EVs.

Volvo said it needed to upgrade a number of its components in order to support the higher voltage system, including battery cells, motors, inverters, and thermal parts. The new motors were lighter and more efficient, and the overall system now creates less heat, meaning the battery can be charged at a faster rate without overloading the electrical system.

Volvo also plans to introduce a new, in-house-developed battery management software for the ES90, provided by Breathe Battery Technologies, which also received investments from Volvo’s corporate venture capital arm. The new software will slash the amount of time it takes to charge from 10 to 80 percent by as much as 30 percent, down to 20 minutes.

The ES90 will also feature a slew of recycled materials, including 29 percent of the aluminum, 16 percent of polymers, and 18 percent of steel. Wood panels inside the ES90 are made from FSC-certified wood, Volvo says. The automaker is also introducing a new blockchain-based battery “passport” to track raw materials like lithium, cobalt, nickel, and graphite used in the battery. 

Two years ago, the last time Framework had an event in San Francisco, California, the highlight was the Framework Laptop 16 — a laptop promising the “holy grail” of upgradable graphics cards, and easily one of the most ambitious laptops ever made.

But today, the Framework Laptop 16 got little mention at its new event, which focused on the new, similarly gamer-oriented Framework Desktop instead. While the Desktop and Framework’s original 13-inch laptop both got the latest AMD processors today, we don’t yet know if or when the Framework Laptop 16 might leap forward too.

The only mention of Framework’s flagship laptop was a new “One Key Module” that will experimentally be available for the Framework community to build their own electromechanical keyboards, should they choose to, that would be thin enough to fit in the Laptop 16’s extremely thin Input Module bay. (You can see how the Input Modules work in my video here.)

While Framework did finally ship its promised M.2 adapter bay in December, which will let you stick extra SSDs or other peripherals into a Framework Laptop 16 instead of a discrete graphics card, my big question is: is the promising but somewhat problematic laptop a dead end, or will it get new mainboards and new chips in the future?

I tracked down Framework CEO Nirav Patel at the event today, and he wouldn’t say much, but he was clear on one thing: “We’re nowhere near done with Framework Laptop 16.”

I pushed my luck, asking: Is today the day he can assure us that the Laptop 16 will eventually see at least one GPU upgrade or snap-on secondary battery?

“Today is not that day,” he told me.

I want to see Framework succeed, and perhaps it’s too early to begin to wonder otherwise — it was still shipping preordered batches of the Laptop 16 to buyers through the middle of last year.

But we’ve pushed the company pretty hard on the GPU in the past specifically because it’s a thing rivals have tried and failed at before — Dell/Alienware even got sued over the failed promise of the Alienware Area-51m, which never bothered to ship a second generation of its supposedly upgradable GPUs.

Framework has resisted our pushes so far, stopping short of confirming it in our 2023 story: here’s his exact language at the time. It’d be nice if Framework could assure buyers that the upgrades are absolutely coming. But personally, there’s more than a few things about that laptop I’d like to change, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Framework was doing a bit of a rethink even if it does deliver.

Razer is adding a fresh gaming laptop to the pile of new models up for preorder today: the Blade 18. Like its smaller (but far from small) Blade 16 cousin, the new Razer Blade 18 will come with Nvidia’s RTX 50-series GPUs and Intel Arrow Lake CPUs. But one major way it differs is its large 18-inch display, which has dual modes allowing it to run at either 3840 x 2400 at 240Hz or 1920 x 1200 at 440Hz.

The Blade 18 will start at $3,199.99 with an RTX 5070 Ti and climb to $4,499.99 with an RTX 5090. But if either the Blade 18 or the already announced $2,799.99 Blade 16 are the right pricey option for you, you’ll have to wait until late-April for them to actually ship.

Razer isn’t the only PC manufacturer offering new gaming laptops for preorder today. As Nvidia already teased, a variety of new notebooks sporting RTX 50-series GPUs now have finalized pricing, and there are fresh offerings from the likes of Asus ROG, MSI, and HP. Back when many of these laptops were first announced at CES in January, they mostly had estimated prices or no pricing at all.

The first wave of these new gaming laptops sits at the high end with high prices, and some are more expensive than their last-gen versions with 40-series GPUs. Like previous generations, we may have to wait until cheaper mobile GPUs are announced and brought to market to get something not priced into the stratosphere.

Hopefully, the mobile versions of Nvidia’s new cards won’t be saddled by some of the problems that have hit its latest desktop class, with mediocre improvements over their last-gen counterparts, power issues, or manufacturing missteps.

As for some examples of these soon-to-land laptops and the kinds of prices we’re talking: Asus’s flagship ROG Strix Scar 16, with its new wraparound RGB lighting, starts at $3,299.99 with an RTX 5080 GPU and $4,299.99 with a top-of-the-line RTX 5090. The sleeker Zephyrus G14, which is a Verge favorite for balancing gaming performance with everyday usability, starts at $2,499.99 with an RTX 5070 Ti. And the larger Zephyrus G16 starts with the same GPU at $2,699.99. The G14 can go up to the RTX 5080, but the G16 will go all the way to an RTX 5090 once those higher-end configurations come a little later.

MSI has its RTX 5090-equipped Titan 18 HX AI is up for preorder for an astounding $5,999.99. (That’s not even MSI’s ridiculous Dragon Edition Norse Myth, which is still listed as “coming soon.”) The company has some of its slightly more down-to-Earth gaming laptops up for preorder as well, like the Stealth 18 HX AI with an RTX 5070 Ti starting at $2,999.99.

The first PCIe Gen 5 SSDs from the likes of Seagate and Crucial began hitting the market nearly two years ago, but Samsung has been notably absent with its own model. That will change in March with the arrival of the Samsung 9100 Pro series, its first consumer-ready pure PCIe Gen 5 SSD built with NVMe 2.0. At launch, it will be available in 1TB (starting at $199.99), 2TB ($299.99), and 4TB ($549.99) capacities in an M.2 form factor, with or without heatsinks. An 8TB configuration, a first for Samsung NVMe SSDs, is slated for the second half of 2025.

By the numbers, the 9100 Pro’s theoretical maximum random read and write speeds — 2,200K and 2,600K input-output operations per second (IOPS) — are at least twice as fast as the last-gen Samsung 980 Pro, a PCIe Gen4 SSD. Our earliest comparison of that SSD with Seagate’s Firecuda 540 and Crucial’s T700 showed no noticeable benefits for PC gaming; however, the difference may be more evident for heavier computing workflows. If nothing else, it’d be nice to know you’re future-proofed, at least until PCIe Gen 6 arrives.

The gains might be more apparent if you’re talking about large-volume file transfers, though, which videographers or software engineers working with large datasets might appreciate. Samsung says the 9100 Pro (built on its V Nand TLC V8 with a custom controller) can reach sequential read and write speeds of up to 14.8GBps and 13.4GBps, respectively. That’s roughly double the last-gen 980 Pro, and about 2-3GBps per second faster than the earliest PCIe 5 SSDs can manage.

The White House has named Amy Gleason as the acting administrator of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The news, delivered by an unnamed White House official to CNBC and other media outlets, follows days of obfuscation in courtrooms, the press, and the pseudo-department itself. It designates Gleason a likely target for the nigh-continuous legal challenges over DOGE’s access to sensitive data and freezing of government funds — while potentially shielding its high-level leader Elon Musk.

Gleason’s LinkedIn profile indicates she previously served in the US Digital Service (which has since been converted to serve DOGE’s efforts) and worked for the healthcare investment firm Russell Street Ventures. It’s unclear when she was given her current title or whether there are plans for a permanent head of DOGE. And earlier today, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt refused to name a formal administrator for the group. “I am not going to reveal the name of that individual from this podium,” Leavitt said, telling reporters she would be “happy to follow up” later to provide it.

Gleason was already identified as a possible leader in a February 18th Wired story, where USDS employees described her as a liaison between DOGE, USDS, and other agencies. But at that point, Wired noted that “little is known about her official role” and said even employees weren’t sure who was supposed to be in charge.

The government has been cagey about who formally runs DOGE while leaving little doubt about who’s in charge. Leavitt and others have repeatedly identified Musk as overseeing DOGE’s overall operation. At the same time, they’ve denied that he has any formal association with it, saying he’s merely a special government employee serving as an advisor.

This extends to statements made under oath in weeks of courtroom drama — as numerous state attorneys general and private actors argue that DOGE is operating illegally, while the government seeks to insulate Musk and avoid naming anyone the challengers could sue. A February 17th court filing asserted that Musk had “no actual or formal authority” in DOGE. Later, in a hearing on February 24th, Department of Justice lawyer Bradley Humphreys told Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly that he didn’t know if anyone led the organization at all.

“Is there an administrator of DOGE at the present time?” Kollar-Kotelly asked.

“I don’t know the answer to that,” Humphreys replied.

Apple has acknowledged a peculiar bug with the iPhone’s dictation feature that briefly displays “Trump” when someone says the word “racist.” The Verge has been unable to reproduce the issue, but it picked up attention on Tuesday after a video demonstrating the strange substitution went viral on TikTok and other social media.

The company provided a statement to The New York Times and Fox News confirming the bug. “We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers dictation, and we are rolling out a fix as soon as possible,” an unnamed spokesperson said, according to Fox News.

Apparently the issue boils down to phonetic overlap between “Trump” and “racist.” The company told Fox News that other words with an “r” consonant are also occasionally affected. But John Burkey, who formerly worked on the Siri team at Apple, told the Times that Trump’s name appearing “smells like a serious prank” that could have been purposefully carried out by someone internally.

Regardless of the technical reason behind it, the awkward glitch comes a day after Apple announced plans to invest more than $500 billion in the United States over the next four years. The company is looking to blunt the potential impact of tariffs put into place by President Donald Trump, with a 10 percent tariff already in effect on goods imported from China, and a 25 percent tariff threatened for chips.

Back in June 2020, when this article was first written, people were taking to the streets to organize for justice and protest against systemic racism and police brutality. It was revised two years later when people were taking to the streets to protest the possibility that the Supreme Court might overturn Roe v. Wade (and we know how that turned out).

Currently, in the first months of the new Trump presidency, people are once again wondering how they can make their opinions known. While some may choose to call their representatives or attend town hall meetings, others might be planning to attend protest demonstrations. And because we’ve all become used to carrying a great deal of our personal data with us via our phones and / or watches, it has become more important than ever to guard that data if there is a chance of confrontation or arrest.

The following tips have to do with your phone. If you also have a smartwatch, you may want to simply leave that home.

Be aware

If you’re attending or even just watching the protests, then be aware: not only is your phone a trove of information about you and the people you communicate with, but it also functions as a tracking device …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Since its app fiasco last year, Sonos has been busy slowly rebuilding its reputation with customers. This latest sale, which is exclusive to existing customers, seems to be a part of that strategy — and we’re not complaining, because the deals are solid. Through March 2nd, Sonos is taking 25 percent off one select Sonos product up to $2,500, though you’ll have to sign in (or create an account) to see the discounted prices. To qualify, you must have registered a Sonos product by February 19th, 2025.

The Sonos sale includes a wide range of audio gear, many of which are down to new all-time low prices. For example, the Sonos Ace is cheaper than ever at $336.75 ($112.25 off). Along with delivering good sound and noise cancellation, the Ace supports TV Audio Swap so you can pair it with Sonos soundbars for private listening. That includes the latest Sonos Beam and Sonos Ray, both of which are also on sale for some of their best prices at $374.25 ($124.75 off) and $209.25 ($69.75 off), respectively. The Beam is the larger, more capable of the two, with support for Dolby Atmos as well an eARC HDMI port. That said, the entry-level Sonos Ray also produces balanced, dynamic sound for its size, even if it’s not on the same level.

Alternatively, if you’re looking for a powerful yet portable speaker, the Sonos Move 2 is down to $336.75 ($112.25 off). The six-pound speaker features stereo sound that can fill up any outdoor patio or room, and also comes with a built-in handle for greater portability. If you prioritize portability over power, though, the smaller and waterproof Sonos Roam 2 is also on sale for $134.25 ($44.75 off).

Last but not least, the Sonos sale also includes its newest smart speakers. You can, for example, buy the Sonos Era 100 and Sonos Era 300 for an all-time low of $186.75 ($62 off) and $336.75 ($112.25 off), respectively. Both speakers offer support for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth audio, and line-in playback via an optional 3.5mm to USB-C adapter. The Sonos Era 300, however, is designed to deliver an excellent spatial audio experience with Dolby Atmos support.

As part of its February Xbox update, Microsoft is making it easier to invite your friends to an Xbox Cloud Gaming session by letting you generate shareable links. You can send the link through an Xbox message or by copying it to your clipboard for pasting into any messaging app you want. Players can accept the invite on a supported PC or mobile web browser and jump in right away or receive a code to enter on any TVs or streaming devices with Xbox gaming features.

Willing participants must have an Xbox account, with some games requiring an active Game Pass Ultimate subscription. It also requires each player to have an “entitlement” to the game, presumably by owning it outright or having access through Game Pass or a free-play period. You can invite as many friends as the game allows and revoke access to the link at any time. Some games will also allow you to remove unwanted players from your session.

This new feature arrives as part of the continued expansion of Xbox Cloud Gaming, which recently added the ability to stream your own games on your Xbox console or on mobile, PC, and TVs. (Previously, you could only stream select Game Pass titles.) That feature launched with 50 supported titles, but Microsoft recently expanded it with about half a dozen, including notable additions like Blasphemous II, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, and Subnautica.

It’s time to put all the lessons I’ve learned about Infinity Nikki’s gacha system to the test. There’s a new event coming to the game and with that comes a new outfit I actually want this time. 

After the game taught me an unfortunate lesson on the gacha economy, I’ve kinda taken it easy with Infinity Nikki, and have found myself enjoying it way more at a slower pace.

Updates come about once a month, and when I first started playing, I’d blaze through all the new and shiny quests within days only to spin my wheels at the tail end of the month desperate for something new to do. With that in mind, I slowly worked my way through all the Lunar New Year content, completing everything I wanted mere hours before the event was due to wrap up. It feels like I’ve finally gotten into a steady rhythm with the game. I know how to play and how to spend and I’m happy again enjoying the game for what it is.

With the flashy fireworks in the distance, I took a look ahead to the next event, Eerie Season, due to start February 26th. It’s an oddly themed update. Typically games save their spooky events for October not March. But the community has been clamoring for more darker themed clothing since the overwhelming majority of the game’s items are pink and pastel so this seems like a response to that. The update will also flesh out the Queen’s Palace Ruins, an area of the game that’s visually interesting with its dilapidated and haunted castle vibe but devoid of any story or quest content. I am interested in poking at the darker bits of Infinity Nikki’s story and the overall lore of the world and Eerie Season seems poised to give me just what I’m looking for.

One of the things that’s helped me stick to my guns about not spending any extra money is the fact that premium outfits have never really moved me at all. Everything’s cute, of course, but nothing’s made me sit up and go “I must have this!” However, that apathy disappeared the moment I took a look at the premium outfits for Eerie Season.

I saw that cowboy outfit and audibly cursed. I’m from the midwest, we don’t have cowboys here. I don’t even like cowboys like that but … I must have this. So I’ve decided to apply all the tricks and tips I’ve learned about gacha game to acquiring this one outfit without spending any extra money. I think I’ll be able to do it, too.  

After that rather frustrating lesson on exactly how gacha games can fleece even the most clear-eyed players, I haven’t spent any more money and have ignored the game’s clothing slot machine. As a result, I’ve amassed a small but tidy sum of premium currency, although not enough to get the cowboy outfit outright. After some light mathing, I’ve determined that I’ll need another 4,000 or so of the premium currency (or roughly $15). Thankfully, with what the battle pass and the new event quests will provide, I’m reasonably confident that I’ll have more than enough to get the entire outfit without any extra spending.

Weirdly enough, I’m excited about it. Not just because I’ll have an outfit that I truly want but also because there’s a thrill to making, executing, and succeeding with a plan. We’ll see how that goes when the new event starts February 26th.

8BitDo has released an upgraded version of its Ultimate controller now available to preorder through Amazon for $59.99 in purple, black, and white color options. The new 8BitDo Ultimate 2 features a similar asymmetrical stick layout to 8BitDo’s original Ultimate controller that launched in 2022, but adds additional buttons, interactive LED lighting, and tunneling magneto-resistance (TMR) joysticks that are even more durable than Hall effect sticks.

We still don’t know if Nintendo will switch to Hall effect joysticks for the Switch 2, but companies like GuliKit have already moved away from them in favor of TMR. The technology has already long been used in hard drives to boost storage capacities. For controllers, it allows for joysticks that draw less power, which can improve battery life while nearly eliminating the risk of joystick drift that plagued the Nintendo Switch and other modern controllers before magnetic Hall effect technology was adopted.

8BitDo is also bringing over the RGB Fire Ring lighting effects first introduced on its smaller-sized Ultimate C wired Xbox controller. As the branding implies, both joysticks feature a ring of color-changing LEDs around their base with several lighting modes that react to button presses (including the triggers) or the direction the joysticks are being pushed.

The Ultimate 2’s triggers still use Hall effect sensors for improved accuracy and reliability, but 8BitDo has introduced a switch that lets you swap their behavior between longer draw triggers ideal for racing games and short pull tactile triggers for quicker responses while playing first-person shooters. And like the budget-minded 8BitDo Ultimate 2c, the Ultimate 2 has an extra pair of customizable shoulder buttons on the back.

The controller connects to 8BitDo’s Ultimate Software V2, which is also available as a mobile app, allowing buttons to be remapped and the sensitivity of joysticks and triggers to be adjusted. The controller has support for motion controls for games that support it, and a charging dock is still included.

Connectivity options include Bluetooth, a wired USB-C connection, or a low-lag 2.4GHz wireless connection using an included USB-C dongle. But like the cheaper Ultimate 2C, 8BitDo has only made its new Ultimate 2 controller compatible with PCs running Windows 10 and later or Android devices running Android 9.0 and newer.

Versions of the new Ultimate 2 compatible with the Xbox, iOS, or Nintendo Switch (and presumably the Switch 2) haven’t been announced yet, but 8BitDo previously released additional versions of the original Ultimate controller with alternate compatibility.