Amazon's $1.7 billion acquisition of Roomba manufacturer iRobot is under scrutiny not only in the US, but also in Europe. The European Commission has revealed that it has opened an in-depth investigation into the purchase out of concerns that the merger would restrict competition for robotic vacuum cleaners. In particular, the commission is concerned that Amazon might prevent iRobot's rivals from selling their robot vacuums on its marketplace. Amazon might favor iRobot's products in both paid and unpaid search results or charge competing products more to advertise their offerings, the commission said. 

In addition, authorities are worried about the possibility of Amazon preventing iRobot rivals from accessing future Alexa APIs and from getting the "Works with Alexa" certification, since voice control with the assistant is one of the most important selling points for robot vacuums. Finally, the commission has raised concerns about Amazon obtaining access to iRobot users' data, which it believes could provide the e-commerce giant "an important advantage." Amazon could, for instance, use that information to better personalize and target advertisements. Bottom line is that the "transaction may raise barriers to entry and expansion for Amazon's competitors to the detriment of consumers."

The commission will now look into these concerns in cooperation with other competition authorities and has until November 15th to finalize its results. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission launched a probe into the acquisition last year after politicians from both parties asked it to oppose the purchase.

An Amazon spokesperson told Reuters that the company will "continue to work through the process with the European Commission and [is] focused on addressing its questions and any identified concerns at this stage." They also told the news organization that Amazon could "offer a company like iRobot the resources to accelerate innovation and invest in critical features while lowering prices for consumers."

French law enforcement may soon have far-reaching authority to snoop on alleged criminals. Lawmakers in France's National Assembly have passed a bill that lets police surveil suspects by remotely activating cameras, microphones and GPS location systems on phones and other devices. A judge will have to approve use of the powers, and the recently amended bill forbids use against journalists, lawyers and other "sensitive professions," according to Le Monde. The measure is also meant to limit use to serious cases, and only for a maximum of six months. Geolocation would be limited to crimes that are punishable by at least five years in prison.

An earlier version of the bill passed the Senate, but the amendment will require that legislative body's approval before it can become law.

Civil liberties advocates are alarmed. The digital rights group La Quadrature du Net previously pointed out the potential for abuse. As the bill isn't clear about what constitutes a serious crime, there are fears the French government might use this to target environmental activists and others who aren't grave threats. The organization also notes that worrying security policies have a habit of expanding to less serious crimes. Genetic registration was only used for sex offenders at first, La Quadrature says, but is now being used for most crimes.

The group further notes that the remote access may depend on security vulnerabilities. Police would be exploiting security holes instead of telling manufacturers how to patch those holes, La Quadrature says.

Justice Minister Éric Dupond-Moretti says the powers would only be used for "dozens" of cases per year, and that this was "far away" from the surveillance state of Orwell's 1984. It will save lives, the politician argues.

The legislation comes as concerns about government device surveillance are growing. There's been a backlash against NSO Group, whose Pegasus spyware has allegedly been misused to spy on dissidents, activists and even politicians. While the French bill is more focused, it's not exactly reassuring to those worried about government overreach.

Twitter isn't exactly happy about Meta's Threads app, a new text-based Instagram sibling. As Semafor reports, Twitter has threatened legal action against Meta, accusing it of poaching former employees and unlawfully misappropriating trade secrets and intellectual property.

“Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information,” Alex Spiro, Elon Musk's personal lawyer, wrote in a letter to Meta. “Twitter reserves all rights, including, but not limited to, the right to seek both civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice to prevent any further retention, disclosure, or use of its intellectual property by Meta.”

Spiro, who is acting on behalf of Twitter parent X Corp, claims that Meta has hired dozens of ex-Twitter employees over the last year. He claimed the company "deliberately assigned" them to work on Threads "with the specific intent that they use Twitter's trade secrets and other intellectual property in order to accelerate development of Meta's competing app." He argued this violates state and federal laws as well as those employees' obligations to their former employer. In addition, Spiro said Meta is prohibited from scraping Twitter data relating to who people follow. 

Engadget has contacted Meta for comment. The company told Semafor that Spiro's claims were baseless and that no members of the Threads engineering team were ex-Twitter employees.

For the time being, Threads users need to sign up for the app with their Instagram profile. It's an easy process that helped Meta quickly sign up tens of millions of users. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that 30 million people had joined Threads by Thursday morning, just over 12 hours after the app went live.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie has been available for digital purchase and download from various sources for a little while now. The film will be available to rent starting July 11th on services such as Apple TV and Amazon Video. It was even available to watch through Twitter for a short period of time. But for those who prefer (or already subscribed to a ton of) streaming services, the movie will be hitting Peacock on August 3rd, according to Deadline. 

Despite some earlier mixed reviews, most fans seemed to like it overall. The Super Mario Bros. Movie even broke box office records. When we checked the movie out, our reviewer Devindra Hardwar thought that it was great for all ages with endless references that didn’t take you out of the movie if you’re not a diehard Nintendo fan. Its A-List cast includes Jack Black as Bowser, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad and Chris Pratt as the lovable Mario. The movie follows the Mario Bros struggling to get their Brooklyn-based plumbing business off the ground. Somehow, someway (you’ll have to watch the movie to find out) the duo falls into the Mushroom Kingdom and ultimately have to battle it out with the one and only Bowser.

The success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie hopefully sets a precedent for more films from Nintendo. It’s long been rumored that Nintendo is working on a Legend of Zelda movie or TV series, and the success of Mario might give them reason to finally do it.

It’s been a whopping four years since Pokémon Sleep was announced, in the wake of the Pokémon Company’s success with Pokémon Go. For a while everyone thought the bizarre sleep tracking app would disappear into the dustbin of vaporware history, but there’s a brand-new ‘gameplay’ trailer and an approximate release date of late July.

We put gameplay in italics because this isn’t a game. It’s a sleep-tracking app with a Pokémon skin. The app pairs you with the snooze-loving Snorlax. You increase your bond with the giant oaf by, you’ll never guess, sleeping. Getting a good night’s sleep increases your score and allows Snorlax to siphon “drowsy power” from your poor, lifeless husk. In return, more tired Pokémon visit and gift you rare sleep styles. Rinse and repeat until your “Sleep Style Dex” is filled to the brim. Gotta catch 'em all.

You can also moderately increase your bond with Snorlax by feeding it berries and specialized drinks, but that won’t bring exhausted Pokémon like Slowpoke and Diglett to your “sleep island.” That requires rest and accurate sleep tracking.

To that end, the sleep tracking capabilities seem fairly robust, leveraging your phone’s microphone and accelerometer sensors to see how much you toss and turn or if you snore. Your personal sleep style seems to inform which pocket monsters come to visit. For instance, if you toss and turn all night, expect Togepi to impart its “Rocking Sleep” style. If you snore, Jigglypuff will offer a song via its signature “Singing Sleep” style. The company hasn’t noted which Pokémon comes to visit if you lay in bed all night staring at your phone surrounded by potato chips, nor have they stated why a sleep tracker took over four years to develop.

The app is a walled-garden and doesn’t integrate with any fitness tracking or sleep tracking apps. It does, however, pair up with the Pokémon Go Plus bracelet, letting users begin sleep tracking by pushing a button on the device. Using the bracelet also encourages a rare visit from a nightcap-wearing Pikachu. A bracelet costs around $30 and the forthcoming Pokémon Sleep is a free app.

All of the the world's governments will, at least officially, be out of the chemical weapons business. The US Army tellsThe New York Times it should finish destroying the world's last declared chemical weapons stockpile as soon as tomorrow, July 7th. The US and most other nations agreed to completely eliminate their arsenals within 10 years after the Chemical Weapons Convention took effect in 1997, but the sheer size of the American collection (many of the warheads are several decades old) and the complexity of safe disposal left the country running late.

The current method relies on robots that puncture, drain and wash the chemical-laden artillery shells and rockets, which are then baked to render them harmless. The drained gas is diluted in hot water and neutralized either with bacteria (for mustard gas) or caustic soda (for nerve agents). The remaining liquid is then incinerated. Teams use X-rays to check for leaks before destruction starts, and they remotely monitor robots to minimize contact with hazardous material. 

The Army initially wanted to dispose of the weapons by sinking them on ships, as it had quietly done before, but faced a public backlash over the potential environmental impact. Proposals to incinerate chemical agents in the 1980s also met with objections, although the military ultimately destroyed a large chunk of the stockpile that way.

The US last used chemical weapons in World War I, but kept producing them for decades as a deterrent. Attention to the program first spiked in 1968, when strange sheep deaths led to revelations that the Army was storing chemical weapons across the US and even testing them in the open.

This measure will only wipe out confirmed stockpiles. Russia has been accused of secretly making nerve gas despite insisting that it destroyed its last chemical weapons in 2017. Pro-government Syrian military forces and ISIS extremists used the weapons throughout much of the 2010s. This won't stop hostile countries and terrorists from using the toxins.

Even so, this is a major milestone. In addition to wiping out an entire category of weapons of mass destruction, it represents another step toward reduced lethality in war. Drones reduce the exposure for their operators (though not the targets), and experts like AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton envision an era when robots fight each other. While humanity would ideally end war altogether, efforts like these at least reduce the casualties.

Generally, the game-creation process begins with a mechanic. There tends to be an input method that developers want to explore, or maybe even a storyline that they think will be particularly powerful in an interactive setting. There’s usually a central theme grounded in a genre like “first-person shooter” or “isometric roguelike,” and the game comes together within this framework, its details and proper nouns crystalizing along the way.

In the case of Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, Simogo started with the name.

“There wasn't a single a-ha moment,” Simogo co-founder Simon Flesser told Engadget. “We had the title which we really liked, and from there we have been trying to figure out what laser eyes are.”

Simogo

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is the ninth major game from Simogo, the acclaimed Swedish studio that’s responsible for Device 6, Year Walk and Sayonara Wild Hearts. Simogo revealed Lorelei in June 2022 with a noir-inspired trailer promising a murder mystery, a maze of deceptions and a palace of memories. A smartly dressed woman moves languidly behind the trailer’s text, eyes glowing red as she navigates the monochromatic grounds of a large estate.

Simogo didn’t divulge a ton of detail about Lorelei at its debut, and it hasn’t provided much clarity in the year since. The game’s latest trailer includes the years 1847, 1963 and 2014, and it hints at international espionage with a paranormal twist, emphasizing the player’s ability to recognize patterns and solve puzzles. “Do you remember the maze?” the trailer asks, over and over again.

So, here are some basic details about Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, directly from Flesser:

• It’s a third-person puzzle adventure.

• It’s non-linear.

• There are nearly 150 puzzles to solve.

• It’s coming to PC and Switch.

• It’s set in the “surreal memory of a house.”

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes plays with cameras in a 3D space, drawing from the best ideas in Sayonara Wild Hearts with shifting mechanics and perspectives. It feels mysterious because, well, that’s what it is.

“The project has been transformative to make, which reflects in its themes,” Flesser said. “It's not a singular concept, it's rather more of a collection of ideas over a long time. Thematically, there are a lot of ideas about stories within stories, stories reflecting each other, memories, dreams and parallel events and worlds.”

Simogo

Players will interact with objects including cameras, computers and locks; they’ll read passages from books and magazines; they’ll play games within games, according to Flesser.

“We're trying to instill a feeling of things not being what they seem,” he said. “Not dread, but a constant feeling of ambivalence, a story in which there is no good or evil. And a sense of absurdity — finding yourself in a strange situation in which you will eventually start questioning what is happening and what is not.”

Simogo wants to mess with your mind, basically. This is kind of the studio’s jam — its previous games like Year Walk, The Sailor’s Dream and Device 6 successfully toyed with surrealism and paranormal events.

“I think there is something interesting that happens when you start blending realities,” Flesser said. “When [a piece of] media starts talking about our reality as if it is a story within its reality, it ends up becoming more real somehow. It creeps into your head in a very specific way. You become the story.”

There’s no release date for Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, but it’s being published by Annapurna Interactive and it's due out in 2024 on PC and Switch. The game’s second trailer landed last week: At the end, a series of maze blocks flash across the screen, positioned as if they’re words in a sentence. It feels like a challenge, or maybe an invitation, to solve one of Lorelei’s puzzles. It feels like the game has already begun.

At least one person on Steam claims they’ve translated the maze blocks into a complete thought, and their result seems to fit appropriately (linked here, for those curious). I asked Flesser for a correct translation of the mystery blocks and he didn’t provide one. Instead, he said simply, “Everything is a puzzle.”

Now's the time to get a smart speaker with a little flourish. Amazon is running an early Prime Day sale on Echo devices that includes steep discounts on fifth-generation Echo Dot bundles with Star Wars stands. The best deal is for a bundle featuring The Mandalorian's ever-so-adorable Baby Grogu for $46, or 41 percent off — that's less than the normal price of the speaker by itself. You can also buy a Darth Vader bundle for $63 (30 percent off), and a Stormtrooper kit for the same price. Just remember that you'll need to be a Prime subscriber to take advantage of these discounts.

You'll also find bargains for the latest Echo Show displays, the higher-end Echo Studio and the entry-level Echo Pop. Fourth-gen Echo Dot bundles are also on sale.

The fifth-gen Echo Dot is ultimately a refinement of the previous model, but that's not a bad thing. You're getting surprisingly powerful sound for a budget speaker, an eye-catching design and the robust Alexa smart home ecosystem. This newest model ups the audio quality and adds a temperature sensor that can help check indoor conditions. This may be helpful if you want to keep a child's room cool during the summer, for instance.

The current Echo Dot doesn't have a 3.5mm jack like its predecessor, so it's not your pick if you're just looking to enhance a conventional speaker system. Likewise, there are still more capable speakers if audio quality is a priority. For the money, though, it's difficult to find better.

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.

To give you an idea how old Angry Birds is, it arrived on iOS, webOS and something called Maemo 5 (?) before it even came to Android, according to our 2010 review. Not only is it still around over 13 years later, but developer Rovio is being purchased by Sega for around $776 million. And on top of all that, Rovio is opening the first Angry Birds-themed restaurant on Friday (July 8th). Called "iSwii by Angry birds," it'll be located within the Food Court at Tangram's new mall in Flushing, Queens, NY — ready to fling cakes, pastries and other treats into your mouth. 

Partnering with construction outfit SCG America, Rovio promises "endless culinary treats, bright visuals, newest Angry Birds Games and interactive technology." Its decorated with "Instagrammable" NYC-themed statue installations outside the entrance, a ceiling mural, terrazzo counter and flooring that looks like dessert sprinkles. You'll also see "nest-like wicker and hanging chairs, bird paradise graphic wall coverings, and tropical plants on the shelving units where hatchlings, the baby birds wander around."

No menu was shown, but the press release mentions "yummy seasonal holiday cakes and pastries," and the provided photo shows mostly deserts, candies and other sweets. It's also hosting private parties in "nests" or "rooms that will offer Angry Birds VR games & treats, including customizable Angry Birds-themed gift bags for party goers. 

We're not sure if people will embrace a restaurant based on a game that peaked around 2015 with the Angry Birds Movie. In any case, Sega's purchase for three-quarters of a billion dollars shows the IP still has value, and the app has over 5 billion downloads to date — plus, the restaurant has a 2013 vibe that could make it a big nostalgia draw. 

One of the best things about the Windows PC landscape is the sheer amount of diversity. Laptops range from tiny 8-inch handhelds to huge 18-inch (or larger) gaming behemoths and beyond. And if there’s a specific feature (like a touchscreen or stylus input) that you really need, there’s a great chance you’ll be able to find it on a notebook that works for you. However, that abundance of choice can also make it difficult to know where to start when shopping. And before you even begin to search, it’s critical that you consider what you’re planning to do with your new laptop. If your main focus is on general productivity, a sleek ultraportable is all you need. But if you’re looking to edit photos and videos or play AAA games, you may want a bigger system with discrete graphics. That said, there’s a handful of general criteria we look for when selecting our top picks.

Performance

The challenge when thinking about performance is figuring out your sweet spot. That’s because while a laptop with blazing speed is nice, you may be paying for more oomph than you need. But if you skimp and get a weak processor, even simple tasks can become a chore and you might end up in a situation where you need to upgrade again sooner than you’d like. Performance is more than just clockspeeds too, so we also consider things like fast wake times, storage speeds and more advanced features like support for ray tracing.

Display and webcams

Regardless of whether a notebook has a touchscreen or a more traditional panel, we look for bright displays (300+ nits or more) that are easy use outdoors or in sunny rooms, accurate colors and wide viewing angles. Screens with high refresh rates are great for competitive gamers, while those with wider color gamuts are important for content creation. And even if you don’t plan on spending a ton of time on video calls, every laptop needs a decent webcam (1080p or higher).

Ports and connectivity

Even with advancements in cellular modems and WiFi, dedicated ports for transferring data or connecting peripherals can make or break a laptop. Ideally, all but the thinnest and lightest systems come with three USB ports, while things like built-in SD card readers can be extremely handy when trying to import media from a camera. And if a notebook is saddled with a slow or outdated WiFi modem (we’re looking for Wi-Fi 6 or later), that’s basically an immediate disqualification.

Battery life

It doesn’t matter how powerful a laptop is if it conks out when you need it the most. Typically we look for runtimes of at least eight hours on a charge, but longer is always better. That said, on gaming machines with thirsty GPUs, you may have to settle for a bit less. And on bigger machines, it’s also important to consider if the system can charge via USB-C or if it needs a larger, proprietary power brick.

The best Windows laptops

Best overall: XPS 13

It’s no surprise that we love the Dell XPS 13. It’s thin, light and it has one of the best screens you can find on a 13-inch ultraportable. And while the XPS 13 doesn’t have the fastest CPU around, a 12th-gen Intel chip is more than enough for basic productivity work. The latest XPS 13 model is the slimmest yet, though it loses the headphone jack in the process. If you need a 3.5mm port, or you’re just looking to save some money, it’s also worth considering the slightly older XPS 13 models. And if you want to future-proof your next laptop a bit more, consider the XPS 13 Plus, which comes with 13th-gen Intel processors and is currently the best Windows laptop for college students in our book.

Best budget Windows laptop: Acer Aspire 5

There’s a reason we selected the Acer Aspire 5 as our top choice in our best cheap Windows laptop guide: It’s sturdy, fast enough and offers decent battery life. We typically don’t expect much with laptops under $500, but the Aspire 5 has consistently been a solid performer. It’s an ideal laptop for students or kids, or for anyone who isn’t particularly demanding. We’re also surprised by the wide variety of ports it offers, including HDMI and Ethernet. While we normally don’t recommend laptops with just 8GB of RAM and tiny 128GB SSDs, those specs are more excusable in the Aspire 5 since it’s so darn cheap. Just think of it as a slightly more capable Chromebook.

Best gaming laptop: ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14

One of our favorite gaming PCs for years, the ROG Zephyrus G14 remains our choice as the best gaming laptop for most users. It weighs just 3.5 pounds, it sports AMD’s powerful new Ryzen chips and it also has the company’s fastest Radeon RX 6000-series mobile graphics. The ROG Zephyrus G14 has a sleek retro-future aesthetic, a comfortable keyboard and a smooth 144Hz, 14-inch screen. While you’d be more immersed in a 15-inch notebook, those typically cost more and are far heavier than the Zephyrus G14. If you’re looking for a balance between power, style and value, the G14 is tough to beat.

Read our full review of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14

Best 360-degree 2-in-1: Lenovo Yoga 9i

Adaptability is the biggest strength of a 2-in-1, with devices like the Yoga 9i capable of transforming into a number of different modes at a moment’s notice. And even though it’s got a relatively portable 14-inch OLED display, Lenovo still found room on the Yoga 9i for three USB-C ports, a fingerprint scanner and a clever rotating soundbar to ensure audio sounds good in any position. Lenovo also includes a free stylus in the box though, sadly, unlike previous models there isn’t a dedicated storage slot for it on the machine anymore. And while its general design hasn’t changed much for 2023, Lenovo has improved the Yoga 9i’s performance with updated 13th-gen Intel processors.

Read our full review of the Lenovo Yoga 9i

Best tablet-style 2-in-1: Microsoft Surface Pro 9

For people who want to travel super light, it’s hard to do better than a tablet-style 2-in-1. And, having basically invented the category, Microsoft’s line of Surface Pro devices are hard to beat. With the Surface Pro 9, you get a bright touchscreen with a 120Hz refresh rate, along with a stylus support. Though, you’ll need to remember to buy one of Microsoft’s folding keyboards (which includes the pen) separately. You also get solid battery life and surprisingly powerful speakers. That said unless you’re deeply familiar with using Windows on ARM-based systems, we’d recommend sticking with the Intel-powered version instead of the model based on Microsoft’s SQ3 chip.

Read our full review of the Microsoft Surface Pro 9

Best powerful thin-and-light: MSI Stealth Studio

Regardless of if you’re editing videos or playing games, MSI’s Stealth 14 Studio packs a lot of power in a very portable package. The base model comes with a 1080p screen, but if you have the money, you’ll want to consider the optional 2,560 x 1,600 display, which boasts a faster 240Hz refresh rate and wider color gamut (100% of DCI-P3). At just 3.75 pounds, the Stealth 14 Studio weighs half a pound less than similarly sized rivals while still supporting up to an NVIDIA RTX 4070 GPU. And the redesigned 2023 model has a stunning magnesium and aluminum chassis that’s also available in a larger 16-inch model.

Read our full review of the MSI Stealth 14 Studio

Best super high-end pick: Razer Blade 18

Razer’s revamped Blade 18 is a monster. It packs full-fat versions of the most powerful components you can put in a laptop including up to an Intel Core i9 13-980HX CPU and an NVIDIA RTX 4090 GPU that runs at up to 175 watts. You also get a massive 18-inch QHD+ display with a 240Hz refresh, tons of ports (including an SD card reader) and gorgeous per key RGB lighting. Holding everything together is Razer’s unibody aluminum chassis, which offers some of the best build quality on any Windows laptop. The one big downside is price: Starting at $2,900 (or closer to $5,000 for a fully loaded model), the Blade 18 is not for people with limited budgets.

Read our full review of the Razer Blade 18