Prime Day is almost upon us and we're seeing some early gadget deals, including Apple's sixth-generation iPad Mini back on sale for $400. This discount takes 20 percent off its sticker price of $500 and marks the latest instance of the iPad Mini hitting this all-time low since Apple released it in late 2021. Right now the deal only applies to the iPad Mini's 64GB Space Gray and Pink models.

The iPad Mini is small but mighty, with an A15 Bionic chip, a 12MP Ultra Wide front camera and up to 10 hours of active use per charge. Its 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display also features P3 wide color, an anti-reflective coating and True Tone. Plus, the iPad Mini is compatible with the second-generation Apple Pencil. 

Apple's 64GB 10th-generation iPad is also on sale for $400, and it's a good option if you're looking for something with a bit of a larger screen. The 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display model is 11 percent off, down from $450, in Pink, Silver and Yellow. It has many of the same features as the iPad Mini, such as a 12MP Wide camera, 4K video, a USB-C connector and 5G connectivity. It falls behind in terms of only working with the first generation Apple Pencil, using an A14 Bionic chip, and having an sRGB color display — meaning colors aren't as accurately shown. However, a lot of these features, like 4K video and an A14 Bionic chip, are improvements from the ninth-generation iPad.

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If you're looking to up your streaming game this summer, now might be the time to do it. Elgato's Stream Deck + is down from $200 to $180 — a ten percent discount. This deal is one of the first real sales on the Stream Deck + since it came out last year. 

The Stream Deck + comes with eight customizable LCD keys that automate actions like going live, playing music and changing scenes. It includes a touch bar and four knobs to control parts of your stream, such as audio, lighting and video. The Stream Deck + also has plugins for Camera Hub, Elgato Wave Link, Spotify, Twitch and more. 

Its counterparts, Elgato's Stream Deck Mini and Stream Deck Classic, are on sale, too, if you're looking for something a bit cheaper. The Stream Deck Mini is 13 percent off, down from $80 to $69.90, making it the most affordable option in the lineup. It offers six customizable LCD keys and includes integrations like YouTube and Twitch. The main differences here are that the Stream Deck Mini allows you to automate fewer actions at a time, and it doesn't have the control knobs to manage features like audio and lighting. 

The Stream Deck Classic falls somewhere between its siblings — so it might be your Goldilocks option. It has 15 customizable LCD keys and integrations like Discord and Spotify but no control knobs. The Classic is on sale for $120, down from $150, giving it the largest discount of the three at 20 percent. 

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If cost has been standing in the way of you picking up that smart display you really want, then today might be your lucky day. Early Prime Day sales are here, and they're slashing the prices on some of our favorite smart displays, the Echo Show series. The Echo Show 5 third generation is at a new all-time low price, with a 50 percent discount bringing its cost to $45 from $90.

Amazon released its third-gen Echo Show 5 in May with better sound quality and 20 percent faster speeds than its predecessor. It uses Alexa to set timers, check the weather and turn on a playlist. Music-wise, it can stream Amazon Music (obviously), Apple Music and Spotify. You can use its 2MP camera to call loved ones or check in on your pets while out. The device itself is made of 100 percent recycled aluminum. 

Early Prime Day sales have also brought Amazon's Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 10 down to record-low prices. The Echo Show 8 second generation is down from $130 to $60 — a 54 percent discount — and features an eight-inch screen, 13MP screen for video calls, 1200 x 800 resolution and visual ID personalization. The third-generation Echo Show 10 is down from $250 to $163 — a 35 percent discount — and touts the same features found on the Echo Show 8, but on a 10.1-inch screen.

Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for the best Amazon Prime Day tech deals. Learn about Prime Day trends on In the Know. Hear from Autoblog’s car experts on must-shop auto-related Prime Day deals and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

Amazon Prime Day is upon us, and with it comes great deals on many of our favorite smart home devices, including already well-priced speakers. We're big fans of Amazon's Echo Dot, recently naming its fifth generation the best smart speaker available for under $50, and now it's at an all-time low of $23. This 54 percent discount brings one of the most affordable smart speakers on the market down to a small fraction of what its competitor's cost.

Amazon released the Echo Dot fifth-gen last year with improved sound quality compared to previous models. It plays Amazon Music, Spotify and Apple Music, has Alexa on hand to answer any questions or tell you the weather and comes with a mic off button for when you don't want her listening. 

Echo Dots are compatible throughout your home, making them ideal for parties or larger spaces. They can also sync with your Fire TV and create a home theater system of sorts. Since the current discount lets you buy two for the price of one (with a few dollars for movie snacks left over), it's worth thinking about whether you want a more expansive sound. 

If you're looking for a smart speaker for a more compact space — and to save a little more money — Amazon's Echo Pop is also touting a big markdown for Prime Day, with a 55 percent discount bringing the speaker from $40 to $18. The new arrival has a front-facing speaker and can lose a little bit of sound quality at high volumes, but other than a few different color options, it doesn't vary too much from its sibling. 

Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for the best Amazon Prime Day tech deals. Learn about Prime Day trends on In the Know. Hear from Autoblog’s car experts on must-shop auto-related Prime Day deals and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

With Twitter seemingly on its very last legs, it doesn't come as a big surprise that other social media giants would want to capitalize on the void. Meta is launching Threads, which allows users to write and comment on posts much in the same way as Twitter. Now we have a first look at how Threads will operate, thanks to early users' profiles showing up on its website.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri has used his first few posts to share more about Thread's purpose and features, including a photo demonstrating how to limit replies. "We have lots of work to do, but we're looking to build an open, civil place for people to have conversations," Mosseri shared in his first post. Threads will eventually include Fediverse integration, a decision Mosseri explained as "you may one day end up leaving Threads, or, hopefully not, end up de-platformed. If that ever happens, you should be able to take your audience with you to another server. Being open can enable that."

Threads

Meta employees like CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Mosseri join celebs like Shakira and Gordon Ramsey and a range of influencers who were given first access to Threads. The limited number of initial users reflects in current follower counts, with most profiles only having a few hundred and Zuckerberg and Mosseri at only a couple thousand.

Threads will be available on the web and for download on the Apple and Google Play App Stores starting the morning of July 6th in the US and UK. It won't be available across the rest of Europe yet, though, likely due to stricter EU data privacy rules. In the meantime, Meta employees aren't averse to patting themselves on the back while taking a dig at Twitter, as Meta product designer Peter Franko did in his first post on Threads.

Apple is initiating one last-ditch effort to maintain a cut of in-app sales, asking the Supreme Court to hear its appeal of Epic Games' anti-trust case, Reuters reports. Two lower courts ruled that Apple must drop its guidelines preventing apps from including their own payment options, a policy that helped Apple's bottom line. 

The fight began in 2020 when Epic rolled out a new Fortnite update that allowed gamers to purchase digital coins through a direct payment feature. The move violated Apple's policy that required all iOS games to use in-app purchases — and gave Apple a 30 percent cut of the profits. Apple removed Fortnite from its App Store in response, despite its regular status as one of its highest-grossing games. In retaliation, Epic sued Apple to end its "unfair and anti-competitive actions" with the goal of changing its policy versus seeking any damages. 

The lawsuit was a mixed bag for both parties involved: In 2021, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Epic knowingly violated Apple's rules and the iPhone maker wasn't required to add Fortnite back to its App Store. Rogers also stated that Apple wasn't acting like a monopoly but that the company must allow apps to provide their users with third-party payment systems. The change went into effect last year, and the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the entire injunction this past April. 

In their filing, Apple's lawyers claim that the ruling extends beyond Epic Games and "exceeds the district court's authority under Article III, which limits federal court jurisdiction to actual cases and controversies." Basically, they argue that the court overreached and asked the Supreme Court to acknowledge that and let its App Store go back to business as usual (developers giving but cuts of sales to Apple). One way or another, Apple will at least have to adapt in some countries, with new European Union regulations requiring the company to allow third-party app stores by 2024.

The billionaire space race is continuing to expand across the globe. Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin has announced plans to expand its operations to "Europe and beyond," the Financial Times reports. Part of this growth hinges on finding a site for an international launch facility — the company has already put down roots in Texas, Washington, Florida and Alabama — but the new location hasn't been chosen yet. It's also actively looking for fresh acquisitions and partnerships outside of the US in areas such as manufacturing and software.

"We're looking for anything we can do to acquire, to scale up to better serve our customers," Bob Smith, Blue Origin CEO, said. "It's not a function of size — rather how much it accelerates our road map of what we're trying to get done." Last year, Blue Origins bought New York-based Honeybee Robotics, a move that appears successful: The space-based robotics company was part of the Blue Origin team that recently received $3.4 billion to build the lunar lander for NASA's third Artemis mission. Blue Origin's biggest competitor, Elon Musk's SpaceX, is handling the first and second Artemis moon landings.

Though Blue Origin was the first to launch, land and reuse a rocket successfully, it has fallen behind its rival due to hold-ups with building its launchers. Blue Origin's plans for a more global footprint might help them catch up with SpaceX's progress. Amazon's Project Kuiper also plans to use Blue Origin's rocket New Glenn for at least 12 launches between 2024 and 2029 after a few years of delays.

Google is about to make it a lot easier for you to buy and rent movies across streamers — for better or worse for your wallet. The company has announced it's adding a Shop tab on Android TV, where you can browse, purchase and store movies.

Though it looks a bit similar, the Shop tab differs from the Android TV's Discover tab in a few ways. Both pages show content from a variety of streaming platforms, but the Discover tab displays recommendations based on your viewing habits, whether or not the titles cost anything to watch. On the other hand, the Shop tab only features content you can, well, shop. Instead of having to click through each app individually, you can see all the movies that are available to rent or buy across the streamers you subscribe to.

The Shop Tab also has a Library section that displays every title you've purchased with your Google account on Google TV devices and its mobile app, Android TV devices and YouTube. Speaking of the Google TV mobile app, you can log in to it on your phone or tablet to download content from your Library for offline access later on. The wait to access this new feature shouldn't be long, as Google reports that the Shop tab will roll out across the US and 23 other countries over the next few weeks.

If you're always coming home to an overheated house or find your jaw on the floor every time the energy bill arrives, it might be time to consider expanding your smart home. The Google Nest Learning Thermostat third-generation is currently available for $179, down from $279 on Wellbots. All you need to do is enter the code 70THERMGDT at checkout to get $70 off your order. We've only seen the thermostat at a lower price on Wellbots once, and it has never dropped below $193 on Amazon, so this is quite a good deal.

The Google Nest Learning Thermostat gets to know your routine and temperature preferences and creates a schedule based on them. Google designed it to constantly consider energy-saving measures, such as changing the temperature when you're away. The smart thermostat also provides you with a report detailing how you use and can save energy in your heating and cooling systems. It also includes a safety feature for fires, sending you a notification if it detects an unusual change in temperature.

On the device itself, you can get information about the weather, the time or your energy usage. Plus, if you're heading home early or feeling extra cold one day, you can control the Learning Thermostat right from the Nest app on your phone.

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There's something so satisfying about finally getting to play the game you love on your console of choice. Rail shooter, Air Twister, is the latest video game to make the jump, with ININ Games announcing it will be released on PS4 and PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox and PC. Air Twister first came on the scene in 2022 exclusively for Apple Arcade. 

Air Twister is the brainchild of Yu Suzuki, who designed classic hits like Out Run, Virtua Fighter and Space Harrier, and follows Princess Arch on a mission to prevent her planet's total destruction (no pressure). Suzuki credits Air Twister as a twist on a game he first thought of in the 80s but wasn't possible to create with the technology of the time. It features 12 unique stages and ten alien bosses — including a clock and candelabra that look straight out of Beauty and the Beast. You can choose from modes such as Boss Rush, Arcade and Turbo as you explore a series of minigames and unlock new challenges through the Adventure Map, all with the backdrop of new and rerecorded songs from Dutch composer Valensia.

You'll have to wait until November 10th to help Princess Arch defend her planet from invaders on your PC or console. Until then, Air Twister is still available on Apple Arcade for iOS and Mac users.