The Morning After: Amazon’s got a 21-inch Echo Show

As our homes (and lives) get smarter, the need for some sort of digital hub big enough to run things becomes more urgent. It’s why Amazon surprise-released a new 21-inch version of its Echo Show that does everything the Show 15 did, but biggererer. It gets a built-in smart home hub with Thread, Zigbee and Matter control, Wi-Fi 6E and a better camera for video calls.

I bought an Echo Show 8 on a whim to use as a screen for my Ring doorbell and found it quite underwhelming. But the idea of having a 21-inch screen that could theoretically lay out to-do lists and calendar tasks on the daily is quite appealing. Having two small kids makes being able to marshal all our schedules on one device quite desirable.

— Dan Cooper

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The best Black Friday deals

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You can now stream some Xbox games you own, but you still need Game Pass Ultimate

But only if you have a digital copy of the title.

Microsoft now allows you to stream select games you own to devices that support Xbox Cloud Gaming. From the outset, Stream Your Own Game will support 50 titles, including Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3 and Balatro. If there’s a catch, it’s that you still need to be a Game Pass Ultimate member to only stream games you own digitally.

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Comcast is spinning out Rotten Tomatoes and cable networks into a separate company

It’s cutting its own cord.

Kabletown Comcast, parent company of NBC Universal, will spin out the bulk of its cable TV empire into a new entity. The as-yet unnamed business will incorporate USA, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, E!, Syfy and the Golf Channel alongside Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes. However the decision is justified, it just looks like Comcast is getting out of the cable business. After all, you probably watched more Suits on Netflix than you did when it first aired on the USA Network.

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Apple patches vulnerabilities used to target Intel-based Macs

Update your machine, now.

Apple has released a raft of security updates for Macs, iPhones, iPads, the Vision Pro and Safari. The company says the updates close a zero-day security hole that could enable malicious code. When you get the little pop-up asking you to update your machine, don’t ignore it.

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X is believed to have been a vector for disinformation.

The UK is launching an inquiry into the role social media played during the 2024 summer riots. Its chair, Chi Onwurah MP, intends to call Elon Musk to speak, given X was a key vector for the distribution of AI-generated images designed to whip up hate. Musk will likely relish the chance to speak — after all, his tweet during the UK riots was “Civil war is inevitable.”

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