Amazon Prime is increasing in price for the first time since 2018. The company used its latest earnings to reveal that it's raising the fee to $15 per month (previously $13), or $139 per year (previously $119). The higher rates kick in February 18th for new customers, but they won't take effect for existing customers until they renew March 25th or later — if you were thinking of trying Prime, you might want to sign up now to lock in the current price for a year.

Amazon pinned the increase on the "continued expansion" of Prime perks along with higher wages and transportation costs. As with the last time around, you can likely blame Amazon's ever more ambitious Prime Video plans for some of the increase. According to Hollywood Reporter, the upcoming Lord of the Rings series is expected to cost $465 million just for its first season — and that's not including other big productions. Throw in the MGM acquisition and Amazon has plenty of media-related expenses.

The company can't blame the hike on financial hardship, at least. Amazon's net profit jumped nearly 57 percent in 2021 to $33.4 billion — the lingering COVID-19 pandemic has been good for Amazon's core shopping business. A surge in profit from EV maker Rivian's initial public stock offering (Amazon has a 20 percent stake) helped mask lower income in the last calendar quarter of 2021, but it's evident the company doesn't need the Prime hike in the near future.

The Prime increase might also irk people beyond Amazon's customers. The company is raising rates even as it fights workers' efforts to improve working conditions, and as it faces increasing government scrutiny of its pricing and other practices. There won't be much sympathy from some corners, then, even if Amazon does use the extra revenue to help staff.

Quantum computing is still rare enough that merely installing a system in a country is a breakthrough, and IBM is taking advantage of that novelty. The company has forged a partnership with the Canadian province of Quebec to install what it says is Canada's first universal quantum computer. The five-year deal will see IBM install a Quantum System One as part of a Quebec-IBM Discovery Accelerator project tackling scientific and commercial challenges.

The team-up will see IBM and the Quebec government foster microelectronics work, including progress in chip packaging thanks to an existing IBM facility in the province. The two also plan to show how quantum and classical computers can work together to address scientific challenges, and expect quantum-powered AI to help discover new medicines and materials.

IBM didn't say exactly when it would install the quantum computer. However, it will be just the fifth Quantum One installation planned by 2023 following similar partnerships in Germany, Japan, South Korea and the US. Canada is joining a relatively exclusive club, then.

The country is no stranger to quantum computing. Controversial company D-Wave is based in Canada, after all. Even so, the IBM move is significant. It gives Canada a more generalized system that could conquer problems impractical to solve using conventional supercomputers. This won't necessarily revolutionize Canada's scientific community, but it could provide an edge until quantum computing is relatively commonplace.

Motorola is once again kicking off a new year with a new Moto G Stylus, and this one still offers solid value — if you're willing to make a couple of sacrifices. The newly introduced Moto G Stylus 2022 model still has a 6.8-inch 1080p display (albeit with a centered hole-punch camera) and an otherwise mostly fmiliar design, but makes the leap to a faster 90Hz refresh rate. You also won't be hurting for longevity with a sizeable 5,000mAh battery in place of last year's 4,000mAh pack.

While those are appreciable improvements, this latest Moto G Stylus is oddly conservative in some places. For one, there's no 5G — slightly odd for a 2022 budget phone when devices like Samsung's A32 5G already managed the feat last year. It ships with Android 11 instead of Android 12, for that matter. You do get 6GB of RAM and a higher-resolution 50MP main rear camera (up from 4GB and 48MP respectively), but Motorola has ditched the Snapdragon 678 in favor of MediaTek's Helio G88. That's more of a step sideways in performance than a leap forward. You still get a ultra-wide and macro cameras, though, and the 128GB of expandable storage plus water resistance should help the phone last.

The 2022 Moto G Stylus is available to pre-order now through Amazon, Best Buy, Motorola and Walmart for $300. That still makes it a good value, but it's not an easy choice between this and last year's Moto G Stylus 5G. You'll have a better display and processing power, but you'll lose 5G and the extra built-in storage. The better value could depend on sale prices for each handset, too. Until there's an updated Moto G Stylus 5G, you may need to shop carefully to find the best device.

Need proof Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has a disconcertingly large fortune? Just ask Rotterdam. Rijnmond and The Washington Post have learned the Dutch city has agreed to temporarily dismantle part of the historic Koningshaven Bridge (often called De Hef) to let his upcoming superyacht, Y721, pass through this summer. City spokeswoman Frances van Heijst didn't yet have a cost estimate, but stressed that shipbuilder Oceanco would cover the costs rather than the city.

As you might imagine, Y721's design is... excessive. With a 417-foot length, three masts and several decks, the vessel is poised to be the world's largest sailing yacht. It's currently under construction in Alblasserdam and is believed to cost about $500 million. If Rotterdam hadn't granted permission to dismantle part of the bridge, Oceanco would likely have needed to sail the partly constructed yacht under the bridge and finish construction at another dock.

The city is also catching some flak over the decision. Koningshaven, built in 1927, was declared a national monument after it was decommissioned in 1994 due to its significance as the first in Western Europe with a central section that raises to allow taller ships underneath. The city finished a three-year restoration of the bridge in 2017, and vowed to never dismantle the bridge again — the Bezos deal breaks that promise in spectacular fashion.

Not that Bezos will necessarily be fazed. Forbesestimates Bezos' net worth at $166.6 billion as of this writing. He could pay for the Netherlands' latest defense budget ($14.3 billion) ten times over and still afford the yacht. To him, dismantling the bridge is effectively a minor inconvenience where it it's a huge affair for virtually everyone else.

The Biden administration is determined to eliminate combustion engine vehicles from federal fleets, and it's not thrilled that one agency might be holding it back. According to The Washington Post, the Environmental Protection Agency and White House Council on Environmental Quality have sent letters to the US Postal Service urging it to rethink a proposal to mostly buy gas-powered next-gen delivery trucks in a project worth up to $11.3 billion. The current strategy is a "lost opportunity" to more drastically reduce the carbon footprint of one of the world's largest government fleets, EPA associate policy administrator Vicki Arroyo wrote.

Only 10 percent of the USPS' new trucks would be electric under the existing proposal, and the overall effort would only improve the fleet's fuel economy by 0.4MPG. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy previously claimed the Postal Service couldn't afford more electric mail vehicles, and has argued his agency needs to focus on basic infrastructure improvements over technology. The USPS is required by law to be self-sufficient, and can't simply request government funds.

There may be an uphill battle to make any changes. DeJoy has staunchly refused to alter the purchasing plan, and the USPS rejected California officials' January 28th request for a public hearing on the plans. The service also largely ignored EPA advice when it created the analysis guiding its plan. The environmental regulator accused the USPS of using "biased" estimates that preferred gas-based trucks. The mail institution reportedly assumed battery and gas prices would remain static even decades later, and that the existing charging infrastructure wouldn't grow. It further overestimated the emissions from plug-in vehicles, according to the EPA.

The Postal Service might be forced to change regardless. The EPA has the option of referring its disagreements to the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which can mediate disputes like this. The letters gave the USPS a last chance to voluntarily rethink its proposal before the Council stepped in, sources for The Post claimed. Environmental groups are also likely to sue if the gas-centric plan moves ahead, and the law firm Earthjustice told The Post the USPS might lose when its proposal often lacks supporting evidence. You may well see a transition toward mail-carrying EVs, even if the transition is particularly messy.

Tesla is once again grappling with large-scale software quality issues. The Associated Pressreports Tesla has issued a recall for 817,143 cars over a flaw in seat belt chime functionality. All Model 3 and Model Y cars, as well as 2021 and newer Model S and Model X cars, have a "software error" that prevents the chime from sounding on startup if the chime was interrupted and the seat belt wasn't fastened. You could run into the problem just by closing the door just after leaving the vehicle, according to the recall notice.

The automaker plans to fix the seat belt chime bug by releasing an over-the-air update sometime in early February. There are no reports of injuries, and the visual seat belt alert still appears properly. South Korean testers first discovered the problem on January 6th, and Tesla decided a recall was necessary on January 25th following an investigation.

While this recall is relatively minor, its timing couldn't be much worse for Tesla. It comes just a few days after a recall for a Full Self Driving bug, and while the NHTSA is investigating a string of incidents where cars using Autopilot crashed into emergency vehicles. A driver is facing felony charges for an Autopilot-related crash, too. That's on top of recalls for physical problems like camera, trunk and suspension defects. Tesla doesn't have a stellar reputation for quality at the moment, and the seat belt chime fault only reinforces that image.

Google thinks it has a way to break the lock rivals like Microsoft have on the office landscape: let employees take (some) matters into their own hands. The company has introduced a free Workspace Essentials Starter Edition you can use just by signing up with your work email. You won't get Gmail services, but you will get access to Chat, Docs, Drive, Meet, Sheets and Slides.

There's no subtlety involved in Google's rationale. It's betting Workplace Essentials Starter will help teams improve collaboration, even if their employers use "legacy productivity tools" that weren't designed for remote and hybrid offices. To put it another way, Google is hoping you'll skip your company's old Microsoft Office suite in favor of Workspace the next time you start a project.

This might not be very persuasive if your company already relies on a cloud-based service like Microsoft 365. It's also safe to say this won't fly if your employer has strict policies on the tools you're allowed to use — your boss might not appreciate you going rogue to finish a quarterly report. Google clearly hopes at least some workers will be tempted, though, and it wouldn't be surprising if the Starter Edition leads to some companies supplementing or even replacing existing tools following demand from rank-and-file staff.

Google is once again facing claims it copied others' code in Android. Purdue University has sued Google over allegations the company is knowingly violating a patent for detecting power management bugs in code. The internet giant purportedly saw an article about Professor Y. Charlie Hu's research on the subject in 2012 and incorporated related infringing code into Android Lint, an error-catching tool in what would become the Android Studio development kit.

The USPTO granted the patent in August 2019. Purdue said it notified Google of the claimed violation in August 2021, but that Google had continued to incorporate the disputed code in Android Studio as recently as this month. The school is asking for unspecified "past and future" damages from Google.

In a statement, Google told Engadget it was still examining the lawsuit, but that it would "vigorously defend" itself and "independently develop[s]" products. We've asked Purdue for comment, but the university already told Reuters it believed Google violated more patents and would add them to the lawsuit if the company didn't negotiate licenses.

School technology patent lawsuits aren't new. Apple, for instance, was asked more than once to pay the University of Wisconsin over claimed infringements. This case may be more serious than some, however. Android Studio is a staple of Android app development — if Purdue can prove a violation in the first place, it could argue that a significant chunk of Android's app ecosystem is built around copied technology.

You can now use music from some Pokémon games without invoking the copyright wrath of Nintendo or The Pokémon Company — in certain circumstances. TPC has launched a Pokémon DP Sound Library that, as the name implies, lets you use audio from the original Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl games in personal projects. You can slip sound effects into a social media video, for instance, or even soundtrack your wedding with a favorite theme. Background music is also allowed for any non-commercial event or personal websites.

You can also download the music for personal consumption. The library website streams music on its own if you're just looking to reminisce with some online radio.

To say there are tight restrictions would be an understatement, however. The Pokémon Company has a strict ban on any commercial uses — you can forget about selling a Pokémon-inspired remix album or game. You can't use the content for broadcast radio or TV, advertising purposes or anything that implies an association with TPC. And did we mention that you can't use the media in anything that makes specific "ideological, religious, or political" claims? Add the requirement for a lengthy copyright notice (163 characters, or more than half the maximum Twitter post length) and you'll probably only be using Diamond and Pearl content very sparingly.

This gesture is a start, though, and it suggests The Pokémon Company is aware personal audio use might help the company's reputation more than it hurts. With that said, we wouldn't expect a dramatic change of heart. TPC's frequent partner Nintendo recently slapped GilvaSunner's YouTube-based soundtrack channel with thousands of copyright blocks, effectively forcing him to shut it down. We wouldn't expect TPC to be more lenient for commercial uses, even with the library in place.

Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey's startup Anduril has so far focused on above-ground drones and virtual border walls, but now it's ready to go below the waves. The company has bought Dive Technologies, a startup focusing on autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs).

Luckey's firm is already offering Dive's existing DIVE-LD AUV as an option. The customizable drone can handle not only military tasks like anti-submarine warfare and undersea combat zone awareness, but peaceful duties like mapping seabeds and oceanographic sensing. This could be as useful for NOAA and commercial ventures as it might be for the Navy, in other words. Anduril plans to integrate its Lattice OS autonomy software into the "next iteration" of DIVE-LD. 

Part of the allure is the manufacturing process. Dive builds the DIVE-LD using a combination of large-scale 3D printing (Large Format Additive Manufacturing) and unique architecture that dramatically reduces the cost and time to make a given drone. It should be more practical to deploy large fleets of drones to monitor underwater areas. Dive chief Bill Lebo noted the Anduril deal would help his team "rapidly scale" to better serve both military and private customers.

The Dive purchase reflects Anduril's own rapid growth. Luckey founded the company in 2017, just months after his ouster from Facebook (now Meta) following a backlash over political donations. Anduril quickly earned business from the US government for its AI-based virtual border wall tech, and by 2020 had a government deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars to install surveillance towers along the US-Mexico border. The startup just recently landed a $968 million contract with US Special Operations Command for counter-drone systems, too. While Anduril hasn't lined up any immediate customers for Dive's expanded operations, it's clearly betting on those clients coming as quickly as they have for above-ground projects.