Fallout games are having a moment in the wake of glowing reviews for the new TV series adaptation on Prime Video. Amazon has added two of the series’ best games as freebies for Prime members on Luna, its cloud streaming service. Fallout 4 is also getting some love, as Bethesda said it will drop the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S update for the 2015 game on April 25.

Amazon Prime members can play Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas on Amazon Luna for the next six months at no extra charge. Like other cloud streaming services, Luna requires a stable and low-latency internet connection since the games you play are processed on remote servers. Amazon recommends a network that can sustain at least 10Mbps for 1080p quality. An ethernet connection works best, but if you’re on Wi-Fi, using the 5GHz band is preferable if your router supports it.

They join Fallout 76, already announced as an Amazon Prime Gaming free game for April. As long as you claim it this month, you can download and keep it forever. It’s redeemable for both Xbox and PC. In addition, the game has a free-play week for all platforms. From Thursday through April 18, you can play Fallout 76 for free on PlayStation, Xbox and Steam. You only need to download the game and sign in with a Bethesda account.

Bethesda

The long-delayed big console update for Fallout 4 finally arrives for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on April 25. The “next-gen” (now current-gen, if we’re being technical) version lets you choose between Performance and Quality modes for prioritizing speed or spectacle. It also supports 60fps and higher resolutions alongside stability improvements and bug fixes. The stability fixes will also arrive in a Fallout 4 update for PS4 and Xbox One consoles to provide a more dependable experience for older hardware users.

The Fallout TV series is damn good — and possibly the second-best gaming adaptation behind The Last of Us. The show starts with a bang and reels you in with magnetic characters and alluring visuals. “Fallout is more than just a video game adaptation,” Engadget’s Sam Rutherford wrote in his review. “It’s a really good show in its own right — an apocalyptically good one at that.”

Fallout is now streaming on Prime Video. It stars Ella Purnell (Yellowjackets) as Lucy, Aaron Clifton Moten (Father Stu) as Maximums, Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks) as Hank and the scene-stealing master of ornery characters, Walton Goggins (Justified), as The Ghoul.

The Fire TV Stick 4K Max streaming device is on sale for $40. That’s a record low for Amazon’s top-of-the-line streaming stick, which usually costs $60.

The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max plugs into your TV’s HDMI port to access all the top streaming services, including (among many others) Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Max, Apple TV+ and, of course, Amazon’s Prime Video.

The streaming stick has a 2GHz quad-core processor to help make navigation zippy and smooth. The device’s 16GB of storage is double that of Amazon’s cheaper models so that you can download plenty of apps and offline content without worries.

The 4K Max supports Dolby Vision, HDR10+ and Dolby Atmos audio for a dynamic viewing experience and more immersive audio (with compatible TVs and speakers). It also supports Wi-Fi 6E for smoother streaming with fewer hiccups if your router also supports it.

It includes Amazon’s latest Alexa Voice Remote. The accessory has four pre-programmed shortcut buttons (for apps like Netflix and Prime Video). It supports Alexa, so you can use it to control the Fire TV Stick 4K Max and other Alexa-compatible smart home devices from your couch.

If you’d prefer to save money over having Amazon’s highest-end model, the Fire TV Stick Lite is also on sale. It’s Engadget’s pick for the best budget streaming stick. The device doesn’t support 4K, so this is only a good option if your television’s resolution is 1080p or lower. (However, it does support HDR.) Usually $30, you can get the entry-level model today for $20.

For those who want an upgraded audio setup, the Fire TV Soundbar is $20 off. It supports virtual surround sound with DTS Virtual:X and Dolby Audio. It hooks up to your TV’s HDMI port and only takes up 24 inches (with a 2.5-inch height) on your entertainment center. The device works with anything connected to your TV, not only the devices in Amazon’s streaming devices. As an alternative, you can connect it to other devices via Bluetooth. Typically $120, the Fire TV Soundbar is available today for $100.

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Substack shows are now on Spotify. The partnership lets Substack podcast creators add Spotify distribution for their programs with only “a few clicks.” The move could boost the streamer’s library after scaling back its exclusive podcast ambitions last year in favor of broader distribution — including a non-exclusive contract renewal with noted vaccine aficionado Joe Rogan.

When listening on Spotify, you’ll see a padlock (or “Paid” tag, where applicable) next to Substack podcasts. You’ll need to link your Substack account before you can begin listening.

Some Substack podcasts are free, and you can listen to those immediately after linking accounts. For paid programs, you’ll still need to pony up for those on Substack before you can hear them on Spotify. (The move is less about giving you freebies and more about expanding Substack’s audience.) But you don’t need Spotify Premium; you can listen to the same Substack content whether you’re on a free or paid Spotify plan.

Spotify says podcast creators retain complete control of their content, subscriber bases and revenue. When setting it up, podcast makers need to choose an option to sync with Spotify in their Creator Account settings. That will instantly make all of their current and future programming available on the streaming platform.

The partnership is built on the Spotify Open Access API, which publishers like Calm, The Economist, Freakonomics Radio, Patreon, Dateline NBC and The Wall Street Journal also use to tap into the music platform’s listener base. It’s easy to see the appeal for creators: Spotify reported 602 million monthly active users and 236 million premium subscribers at the end of 2023.

Amazon has the Nothing Phone 2 on sale for the first time since its launch. The offbeat mainstream smartphone alternative is $74 off its usual price. The deal includes the version with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and it’s ready for activation on T-Mobile or AT&T.

The Nothing Phone 2 has an unusual design, with a transparent back revealing an eye-pleasing arrangement of its internal hardware. The aesthetic is a throwback to tech from the late 1990s and early 2000s, like Apple’s iMac G3 and Nintendo’s Game Boy Color. Meanwhile, the Glyph Interface on the phone’s back uses LED strips to show customizable lights and patterns for your notifications. It’s a charming package that stands out in a sea of smartphone sameness.

Engadget’s Sam Rutherford reviewed the phone in 2023, and he noted its eye-catching hardware design and Monochrome UI in its software. Nothing isn’t marketing its phone based on record-breaking specs, but the startup still made a phone that “never felt slow” while being “well-equipped with handy features like reverse wireless charging.”

The phone runs on Nothing OS 2 (currently, it’s on 2.5.3) on top of Android 14. It has a 6.7-inch OLED display, a 4,700mAh battery and a pair of 50MP rear cameras (main and ultra-wide).

However, note that the phone is only compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile’s networks in the US — not Verizon, Sprint, Cricket or other CDMA-based carriers. Nothing only brought its handsets (officially) to America with the current generation of hardware, so perhaps future models will offer broader stateside carrier support.

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Amazon has decided to cut off paid perks for Alexa developers. The company confirmed to Engadget on Wednesday that it will end the Alexa Developer Rewards Program at the end of June. A second program that rewards developers for using Amazon Web Services as the backend for their Alexa apps will wrap up at the same time.

With the emergence of generative AI, the pioneering voice assistant’s third-party apps (“skills”) no longer appear to be a central focus for the company. The news was first reported by Bloomberg and confirmed by Engadget with the company.

Amazon described the move as a case of phasing out an old project that had run its course. “These are older programs launched back in 2017 as a way to help newer developers interested in building skills accelerate their progress,” an Amazon spokesperson wrote to Engadget. “Today, there are over 160,000 skills available for customers, a well-established Alexa developer community, and new LLM-powered tools that will help developers build new experiences for Alexa. These older programs have simply run their course, so we decided to sunset them.”

The company told me the program launched when developers were still learning to make voice apps, and it was designed to help them get started. Amazon told Engadget that fewer than one percent of developers were using the program. It said Alexa developers will still get paid for in-app purchases from their Alexa skills, adding that the cost of making them has gone down while developer knowledge has gone up.

The Alexa Developer Rewards Program was created to incentivize developers who made high-quality skills for the assistant. Launched in 2017, when Alexa was all the rage, the program paid developers bonuses for skills that met engagement thresholds in specific categories. It was part of Amazon’s quest to turn Alexa Skills into a booming app store for a new generation of voice-first devices, a vision that never fully came to fruition.

Now, the renewed interest in AI assistants is about generative AI, which can handle many of the same tasks as Alexa’s skills (likely much better in some cases). At its fall 2023 devices event, Amazon previewed a next-generation version of Alexa with ChatGPT-like generative AI abilities. The company has also gradually integrated the next-gen tech into its seller tools and product pages.

Bloomberg reports that third-party apps weren’t making Amazon much money (unsurprising, given today’s news). The company cut the available funds for Alexa developer payments in 2020. Amazon also laid off several hundred employees in its Alexa division late last year. Meanwhile, Google threw in the towel long ago: It eliminated third-party voice apps for Google Assistant altogether in 2022.

Rakuten has a trio of new Kobo ereaders, including the company’s first two with color displays. On Wednesday, the company revealed the $220 Kobo Libra Colour and $150 Clara Colour alongside the monochrome $130 Clara BW. You can preorder them today, ahead of their April 30 launch.

The Kobo Libra Colour has a seven-inch E Ink Kaleido 3 display, which should have a noticeable improvement with 16 levels of grayscale, 4,096 colors and 30 percent better color saturation than E Ink’s last-gen tech. The Libra Colour is the only one of Kobo’s new ereaders with stylus support for ebook annotations and highlighting. But you’ll need to add the $70 Kobo Stylus 2 (also compatible with the Elipsa 2E) to enjoy that.

The device has a curved, “ergonomic” design with page-turn buttons. It supports portrait and landscape reading and has 32GB of storage (good for around 24,000 ebooks or 150 audiobooks). Rakuten says its battery can last up to 40 days on a single charge, but that’s for reading for 30 minutes daily with the front light at 30 percent brightness and the wireless turned off. (Expect less if you read more than that or turn the brightness higher with wireless radios on.)

Rakuten Kobo

Meanwhile, the six-inch Kobo Clara Colour and Clara BW forgo the Libra Colour’s page-turn buttons and stylus support in favor of more accessible pricing. The Clara BW differs from the last-gen Clara 2 (Engadget’s pick for the best ereader) with a faster processor, more storage (16GB) and the latest E Ink Carta 1300 display tech.

Rakuten says the Clara Colour and Clara BW can last up to 53 days on a charge, but that’s with half an hour of reading per day, the brightness set at a mere 10 percent and WiFi / Bluetooth off.

All three devices have ComfortLightPro for automatic blue-light adjustment. They have an IPX8 water resistance rating, making them suitable for poolside or bathtime reading. The ereaders use recycled and ocean-bound plastics in their build materials, and Rakuten has partnered with iFixit for self-repairs.

You can buy separate covers (made from recycled materials) with built-in stands for all three new devices. The Libra Colour has a standard $30 SleepCover and a $40 NoteBook SleepCover with a magnetic stylus slot. The Clara Colour and Clara BW have $30 SleepCovers and a cheaper $20 Basic SleepCover.

You can preorder the new ereaders from Rakuten Kobo starting today. The Kobo Libra Colour costs $220, the Clara Colour is priced at $150 and the monochrome Clara BW runs $130. All three devices arrive on April 30.

The Pretendo Network, an open-source Nintendo Network alternative, no longer requires a hacked Wii U console. With Nintendo’s servers for the obsolete console shutting down on Monday, the Pretendo Network shared a new workaround that provides (limited) access to its homebrew servers without jailbreaking your dusty old console.

An SSL (secure sockets layer) is a protocol that encrypts the connection between a device and its servers. The Wii U’s SSL exploit (branded as “SSSL”), discovered by the Pretendo Network’s shutterbug, lets you connect to the network with only a simple DNS change, which you can do on the stock firmware. “We’ve been holding on to this exploit for this day for quite some time, in case Nintendo decided to issue patches for it,” the network’s creators wrote in a blog post announcing the new workaround.

Not everything will work, though. The Pretendo Network team says third-party titles that use their own SSL libraries aren’t compatible. That includes Watch Dogs, the YouTube app and anything running an embedded browser (like TVii, the eShop and the Miiverse applet). However, the network creators stress that in-game Miiverse functionality still works.

The workaround requires a Wii U running at least firmware version 5.5.5. If yours has software lower than that, you should still be able to go online and install the latest update. Nintendo last pushed a Wii U firmware update in August 2022, when the current version (5.5.6) arrived.

Shutting down the Wii U and 3DS online servers doesn’t prevent Nintendo from providing new firmware updates to the consoles. Given Nintendo’s aversion to hacking its devices, the Mario maker could, at least in theory, update the 12-year-old Wii U to patch the DNS workaround.

To take SSSL for a spin in the meantime, you can follow the Pretendo Network’s instructions.

WordPress and Tumblr owner Automattic has bought Beeper, the maker of the Beeper Mini app that challenged Apple’s iMessage dominion late last year. Although it ultimately lost that battle (after, oh, about three days), the incident gave the DOJ more ammunition in its antitrust suit against the iPhone maker. Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that Automattic paid $125 million, a surprisingly hefty price for the startup.

Automattic already has an app called Texts that taps into the APIs of various chat services for a universal messaging experience. Beeper has essentially the same mission and branding, and the two competitors will now merge their teams under Beeper CEO Eric Migicovsky, who will join Automattic.

You may also remember Migicovsky as the creator of the Pebble smartwatch, the charmingly simple pre-Apple Watch device that helped kickstart mainstream interest in wearable tech in the early 2010s. On Tuesday, he told The New York Times that Beeper and Texts will launch a combined service later this year. The two teams will reportedly begin work in two weeks during a meeting in Portugal.

On Tuesday, Migicovsky wrote in a blog post that the two companies go way back. “Matt [Mullenweg], Automattic’s CEO, and I have known each other for years,” he wrote. “He was an early user, supporter and investor in Beeper. We’re very well aligned on our goal (build the best chat app on earth), approach (open source where possible), and independence (Beeper will operate independently as part of Automattic’s Other Bets division).”

Automattic’s buying price is a bit of a head-scratcher, considering Beeper Mini’s claim to fame — iMessage integration on Android — was squashed after only a few days in the spotlight. Beeper framed the brief showdown as a fight for open, secure messaging standards. (It also helped the startup make more of a name for itself.) Apple saw it as a threat to one of its walled garden’s main attractions: the iPhone-to-iPhone chats’ blue bubbles with features like reactions and higher-resolution image and video-sharing.

Another reason to question Automattic’s acquisition price is Apple’s plan to bring RCS (rich communication services) support to iPhones later this year. Although the bubbles will remain green between iPhone and Android users, RCS chats replicate much of the iMessage appeal with a similar feature set, including end-to-end encryption.

Automattic’s interim chief executive, Toni Schneider, told The NYT that he sees the regulatory tradewinds blowing in a more open direction that will favor cross-platform, universal messaging apps like Beeper. Still, from my understanding, tapping into other services’ APIs is something the right coders could easily duplicate (including the Texts team Automattic already owned). Perhaps the real main attraction was the brand Beeper built for itself in taking on Apple.

Acer’s midrange gaming laptop line has four new arrivals today following the company’s refresh of its flagship models at CES 2024. On Tuesday, the company unveiled a pair of new 14-inch entries alongside two refreshes of existing 16-inch models. The Intel-powered Predator Helios Neo 14 and Nitro 16 will join the AMD-fueled Nitro 14 and Nitro 16, launching globally later this spring.

As is often the case with pre-launch laptop announcements, Acer only reveals the devices’ minimum pricing rather than a full specs-to-cost breakdown (Acer says they aren’t yet finalized), making it impossible to gauge their overall value. You can expect that info closer to their respective launches in May and June.

Acer

The Acer Predator Helios Neo 14, one of the two all-new models, is the first sub-16-inch variant in the high-performance line. (At $1,800 and up, it’s also the most expensive of the new batch.) That price gets you up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor 185H (with dedicated AI acceleration) paired with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU. The lower-cost models will downgrade those to Intel Core Ultra 7 155H or Intel Core Ultra 5 125H and RTX 4060 or 4050 graphics.

The top-of-the-line variant has a 14.5-inch WQXGA (3072x1920) display with a 165Hz refresh rate, 100 percent coverage of the sRGB color spectrum and NVIDIA G-Sync support. Its cheaper variants will drop the resolution to 2560 x 1600 or 1920 x 1200 with a 120Hz refresh rate.

The Windows 11 laptop has a 76Wh battery and offers up to 32GB of LPDDR5X SDRAM and 1TB of storage. It weighs 4.19 lbs, has a built-in 1080p webcam, and supports Intel Killer Wireless Wi-Fi 6E. It includes a USB-C/ThunderBolt 4 port with a microSD reader. On the cooling front, it uses a 5th Gen AeroBlade 3D fan and Vortex Flow tech.

The Predator Helios Neo 14 arrives in North America in May, starting at $1,800.

Acer

The Nitro 14 is the first 14-inch variant in the company’s midrange Nitro line. It should offer solid performance with up to AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS processor and RTX 4060 graphics. Cheaper variants drop that down to a Ryzen 5 8645HS processor and RTX 4050 or 3050 graphics.

Its maxed-out model gives you a 14.5-inch 2560 x 1500 display with a 120Hz refresh rate, 9ms response time and sRGB 100 percent gamut support. The entry-level model drops that down to 1080p at 120Hz.

The laptop has USB 4 and USB 3.2 Type C ports, a pair of USB-A ports (including one with offline charging support), HDMI 2.1 and a microSD slot.

The Acer Nitro 14 arrives in North America in May. It starts at $1,300.

Acer

The company’s updated Nitro 16 is launching in separate Intel and AMD variants with different model numbers (AN16-73 for Intel and AN16-43 for AMD). The former has up to an Intel Core i7-14700HX processor, while the AMD version has up to a Ryzen 9 8945HS (the same as the maxed-out Nitro 14). Otherwise, the two models are only separated by extremely minor weight differences (5.37 lbs for the AMD, 5.4 lbs for Intel) and Wi-Fi (Intel’s branded Killer Wireless Wi-Fi 6E vs. a nondescript Wi-Fi 6E for AMD).

As for the many specs the Intel and AMD variants of the Nitro 16 share, they both have Nvidia graphics, maxing out at RTX 4060 with 8GB of dedicated GDDR6 RAM. Cheaper models swap that for either an RTX 4050 or 3050.

Their screens have up to 2560 x 1600 resolution with 500 nits brightness, 165Hz refresh rates and a 3ms response time. The laptops each offer up to 32GB of DDR5 SDRAM and 2TB storage. They have 76Wh batteries with measly 720p webcams.

Both versions of the Nitro 16 will launch in North America in May. They start at $1,400. If you’re considering the new models, you can expect a more detailed configuration-pricing breakdown at or around launch time, so stay tuned.

Tesla has scrapped plans to make an affordable electric vehicle (EV), according to Reuters. CEO Elon Musk said as recently as January that he was “optimistic” the low-cost EV would arrive in the second half of 2025. The automaker will instead reportedly “go all in” on robotaxis, which Musk has described as the future of transportation.

The canceled entry-level EV project — often called “Model 2” — was reportedly codenamed “Redwood.” The automaker had predicted a weekly production volume of 10,000 vehicles, and Musk said, “We’ll be sleeping on the line” to make it a reality. He had previously claimed Tesla was working on two new EV models expected to sell up to five million units annually.

For nearly two decades, the CEO has described his long-term goal as using luxury vehicles to build Tesla’s brand before using those profits to fund budget models. “When someone buys the Tesla Roadster sports car, they are actually helping pay for development of the low cost family car,” Musk wrote in a 2006 “Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan” memo. In the following years, he often echoed those sentiments to customers and investors.

The cancellation would leave the $39,000 and up Model 3 sedan as Tesla’s cheapest vehicle. The scrapped budget model was expected to start at around $25,000.

Reuters’ sources told the outlet they were told about the cancellation in a late February meeting “attended by scores of employees.” The publication says it reviewed internal Tesla messages about the pivot, including one advising staff to hold off on telling suppliers “about program cancellation.” Other messages allegedly told staffers that “suppliers should halt all further activities related to H422/NV91,” referring to the budget model’s external and internal codenames.

Musk posted on X (Twitter) on Friday, “Reuters is lying (again)” in response to the story — without listing any points of contention.

Tesla has its work cut out for it. Not only has EV demand slowed in the US, but competition in China is fierce, with the fast-growing BYD leading the country’s entry-level market. The Chinese automaker said earlier this month that its sales increased 13 percent year over year. Meanwhile, Tesla said on Tuesday that its deliveries dropped eight percent annually while falling 20 percent from the previous quarter.