GoKawiil
Tech News
Amazon has launched a new Echo lineup, led by the Echo Show 16, now available for preorder. The device trades the series' previous room-filling, 360-degree audio for smaller woofers and tweeters, adds a built-in Fire TV platform previously reserved for larger wall-mounted models, and keeps its touchscreen, camera and mic along with wall-mount support.
Amazon introduced five new smart home products and a new feature on Wednesday, roughly two weeks after Apple revealed its HomeView display and HomePod Mini 2. The lineup includes Echo Time, a $200 camera-free alarm clock with Alexa Plus-powered sleep tracking and an optional smart alarm that wakes users during light sleep, plus a kids' version called Amazon Kids Echo Time that pairs with parental controls via the Amazon Parent Dashboard.
Govee's color-changing Christmas String Lights 2 are discounted across all four sizes at Amazon and Govee's own store, with the 66-foot strand at $74.99, up to the 328-foot set at $259.99. The lights support customizable colors, over 130 preset effects, music syncing, and Matter-based voice control, and are weatherproofed for outdoor use.
Samsung and Google have not detailed how their upcoming Android XR smart glasses will address privacy concerns, even as rival makers introduce features like recording indicator lights and physical camera covers. Raven Resonance's Raven Prism glasses use both a light and a magnetic lens cover to signal when the camera is active, while HTC has pursued its own approach with the Vive Eagle glasses.
Amazon has begun shipping most of the new Echo devices it recently announced, among them a bedside alarm clock built around sleep tracking rather than a camera. The device uses ultrasound to detect sleep stages and can trigger smart alarms timed to ease users awake, an optional feature users can turn off.
Amazon announced a wave of fall hardware, including the Echo Show 16 with a 16-inch anodized aluminum display, a 13-megapixel wide-angle camera, and an upgraded Omnisense sensor platform, priced at $499.99 ($569.99 with anti-glare Nanomatte screen). It also introduced a $199.99 Alexa Photo Frame that uses Alexa Plus to surface Amazon Photos based on people and context, plus a new Echo Dot with a built-in smart home hub.
Amazon announced the Echo Show 16, a large smart display priced at $499.99 with a wall mount, or $569.99 for a Nanomatte screen option, available for preorder now with a $100 discount ahead of a later release this year. The device introduces customizable homescreens called Screen Styles, letting users choose a family organizer, smart home dashboard, Alexa widgets screen, or photo frame, with screens able to stay on continuously or activate on approach.
A researcher using the handle log4j says they gained root access to a 2025 Samsung TV and found code suggesting the device can search for microphones in connected soundbars or Bluetooth accessories, even on TV models with no built-in mic. The researcher also alleges the TV logs audio events, tracks viewing habits, and may keep sending ACR telemetry data even after users disable that setting, though no independent party has confirmed these claims.
Oura has filed a fresh patent infringement lawsuit against Ultrahuman in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, alleging the Ultrahuman Ring Pro violates its design and utility patents. The complaint also names SVTronics, the Texas manufacturer of the Ring Pro, and seeks damages plus a permanent sales ban. One of the cited design patents was issued just two days before the filing.
A new guide details how to identify smart glasses by their thicker frames, lens-housing bulges near the temples, and recording indicator lights. It also warns that some low-cost smart glasses sold on TikTok Shop and Temu lack recording lights, making them harder to detect by that method alone, while audio-only models like Ray-Ban Meta Audio Glasses have no cameras at all.
Mozilla has added two new features to Smart Window, its opt-in AI browsing tool in Firefox: AI-powered form filling and website monitoring. The form-filling tool uses Google's Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite model to pull context from other open tabs—such as a portfolio or professional profile—to answer form fields beyond basic autofill data like name and address.
The ONOAYO ONO5 Pro 2.0 Movie Projector is now listed at $296.94 on Amazon, a 40% cut from its $493.99 list price. The native 1080p projector supports 4K input, runs Smart OS 2.0 with built-in Netflix, YouTube, Prime Video and live TV apps, and includes AI autofocus and auto keystone correction.