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Received β€” 20 August 2026 ⏭ The Verge - All Posts

Amazon’s drone deliveries are landing in pools and ponds

20 August 2026 at 16:59
An Amazon drone over a swimming pool

Amazon's speedy drone delivery service will soon reach 500 cities across the US - but that might just mean there are more pools to drop packages into. On Wednesday, ABC7 News Bay Area shared a video showing an Amazon delivery drone hovering over a customer's pool in Texas, before opening its hatch and plopping the package directly into the water.

This isn't the first time Amazon's drones have delivered soggy packages. A video shared last July shows a Prime Air drone dropping a package right next to a customer's pool in Arizona, but air sent downward by the drone's propellers blew it straight into the water. In an interview with local news o …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Received β€” 19 August 2026 ⏭ The Verge - All Posts

Amazon Fire TV devices are getting a free Alexa Plus upgrade

19 August 2026 at 17:00
Alexa Plus on a Fire TV

Amazon is bringing Alexa Plus to Fire TV device owners in the US for free. Starting today, users in the US with an Amazon Fire TV Stick, Fire TV Cube, Amazon Ember smart TV, or other TV with Alexa Plus built in, including those from Panasonic and Hisense, will get access to the more conversational AI assistant.

Previously, Amazon made Alexa Plus available to Fire TV customers with a Prime or Alexa Plus subscription. But now, everyone will get access to Alexa Plus, which can provide movie recommendations based on your mood, help you jump to specific scenes, and answer questions about what you're seeing on-screen. It can also connect to your …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Amazon seemingly leaked Jason Statham’s entire Mutiny movie

19 August 2026 at 14:32
A screenshot showing Mutiny (2026) available to stream on Prime Video USA.
This screenshot shows the Mutiny (2026) page listing on Prime Video US, and the β€œresume” bar indicating that it’s watchable. | Image: Amazon / Dominic Preston / The Verge

Jason Statham's upcoming film Mutiny is set to hit theaters on August 21st, but for at least an hour today it was available to stream in full on the US version of Amazon Prime Video. My colleague Dominic Preston was able to verify that all 1 hour and 35 minutes of the movie was available to watch on Amazon's streaming platform, though it now shows as "unavailable." The Mutiny website and marketing materials state that it'll only be available in theaters when it's officially released in two days.

There's nothing to suggest that this was released on Prime Video intentionally, or that it's intended to be some marketing stunt - neither the Punc …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Amazon’s drones will soon deliver to nearly 500 US cities and towns

19 August 2026 at 13:53
An Amazon drone makes a delivery in Papillion, Neb. on Thursday, July 30, 2026.
Prime Air is launching in Georgia, Ohio, Illinois, Idaho, and New YorkΒ soon. | Image: Joseph Ciembroniewicz/Omaha World-Herald via Getty Images

Amazon says its drone delivery service will reach "nearly 500 cities and towns in the United States" by the end of this year, increasing its coverage by six times compared to the current footprint. Prime Air deliveries will soon be launched in the Chicago, Illinois; Syracuse, New York; Cleveland, Ohio; Atlanta, Georgia; and Boise, Idaho metro areas, according to Amazon's announcement, with "more communities to come later this year."

These will join 11 locations across the US where Amazon already offers drone deliveries, with each Prime Air site serving an area of approximately 175 square miles. The service aims to quickly deliver packages o …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Received β€” 16 August 2026 ⏭ The Verge - All Posts

Amazon is trying to crush class action suits before they get started

16 August 2026 at 19:35
An illustration of the Amazon logo

On Friday, Amazon customers received an email alerting them to an update to the site's terms and conditions. Most notably, it stated that disputes would now be resolved through arbitration and said users agree to a class action waiver.

Amazon framed this as a "fast and efficient" way to resolve issues, but it notably would prevent customers from seeking the involvement of a judge or jury in most circumstances. Customers can still take Amazon to small claims court in certain circumstances, though payouts are often limited to a few thousand dollars.

The relevant sections of Amazon's legal policies page now read:

YOU AND WE AGREE THAT ANY …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Received β€” 12 August 2026 ⏭ The Verge - All Posts

Amazon gets out of the MMO game

12 August 2026 at 18:46

Amazon is fully stepping back from MMOs. After saying last year that it would be halting "a significant amount" of its work on first-party AAA games, "specifically around MMOs," Amazon will be handing over live operations of Throne and Liberty and Lost Ark in the West to other companies, according to announcements on Wednesday. Throne and Liberty will be taken over by FirstSpark Games and NC in Q4 2026. Lost Ark will be run by Smilegate starting in early 2027.

When Amazon announced the broader strategy shift in October, the developers of a third MMO, New World: Aeternum, announced plans to stop offering new content updates. As of January, y …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Received β€” 11 August 2026 ⏭ The Verge - All Posts

Why your Amazon order confirmation emails have become so unhelpful

11 August 2026 at 15:27

Earlier this summer, Amazon customers began noticing that emails related to their online orders looked sparse: Order confirmation emails didn't name specific items anymore, and instead listed only item categories.

"Your Beauty item is confirmed!" an email about my retainer cleaning tablets read. Shoppers have posted other iterations of the redacted emails as well: "Ordered: 1 Hardware item," "Your Drugstore, Shoes, and other items are here!" and "1 Nutrition & Wellness, 1 Wireless Accessories," for example. The emails have clip art-style illustrations of general product categories, and a shopper has to exit their email and go to Amazon to …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Received β€” 8 August 2026 ⏭ The Verge - All Posts

An Amazon data center could have the worst polluting power plant in the country

8 August 2026 at 19:53
Graphic image of a data center.

To power its new West Texas data center, Amazon is investing in the construction of a new power plant that could be one of the largest single producers of greenhouse gases in the US, according to The New York Times. The new gas-burning plant in Pecos County, Texas, has received significant investment from Amazon and, at least initially, would not be connected to the state's power grid. Instead, its 35 natural-gas turbines would primarily deliver its 7.65 gigawatts of electricity to the new data center.

According to Cleanview, which tracks data centers and their associated power projects, GW Ranch received a permit from Texas allowing for th …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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